You wouldn’t let my feet touch ground
until side A died out
and the pirouette ceased.

We laid there in our Analog Atlantis
staring beyond the ceiling
letting the soundscape crash over us
and cascade into auricular orifices.

Our bodies lifted from the mattress,
floating up and up—
past the ceiling, past the trees,
past the planes and clouds,
past the stars and planets—

into the ether we fantasize about
in our synchronized dreams.

Til the sound waves receded,
and our bodies washed up along the shore,
our contours molding into impressionable sand,
turning our gaze to one another—

the needle lifts from the wax
and returns to rest,
the platter ceases its cycle,
the speakers die—

and instead of feet touching ground,
I flipped over to side B.

My fate lies beside
Two parallel lines
Their trust is a disguise
Behind their yellow eyes
If I could let my mind drift
Would this metal beast take the hint
And sway me over the bridge
To let me sink into the abyss

i dream of you i dream with you,
following the musings of the aching poet
blathering hyperbolic verbiage
into subconsciousness
where we leave entwined mortal bodies
for the impalpable enclave
we have created.

i dream of you i dream with you,
in sleep our minds meld
over aching bodies
and lift our spirits
to the ethereal nether-realm,
where we roam
for eons
sauntering through the fields
of ecstasy.  

i dream of you i dream with you,
where the groans of the spirit
and its insatiable yearnings
find solace in the vastness
of the tangent universe,
existing outside our mortal guise,
alluded in our mind’s eye—
it’s heaven
built by you and i.

i dream of you i dream with you,*
in lucid dreams
where we know we are asleep,
but we just laugh whilst
walking through the gates of eternity
flourishing in the eternal splendor
we have created.

How long behind Bob Dylan’s Shades—
smoke furls and curls among the glass—
before a man belies his fame?

The corner of the room pervades—
imbued with smoke if so to pass—
How long behind Bob Dylan’s Shades?

Visage so cool but starts to jade;
will eyes see through and to surpass,
before a man belies his fame?

Caught in the great aesthetical wake,
the fans will bend and surge en masse—
How long behind Bob Dylan’s Shades?

His words, his voice, depict a sage—
I wonder if the lore will last
before a man belies his fame.

But once the petals cease to sway
and blades blow back a pompous ***—
How long behind Bob Dylan’s shades,
before a man belies his fame?

I've got the world's best kept secret
locked in 2 AM screenshots--
her late night musings over a crusty joint, a crushed pill,
or some ***** cigarettes.

She sends me her thoughts,
fears,
anxieties,
insecurities--

at her most vulnerable,
absolutely the most beautiful.

Her anguish stressed in the digital scroll
(though she doesn't like Kerouac, I let her borrow my copy),
her stained fingers mashing all their hurt and nicotine
into the keyboard--

and her pen aches and her paper stains
with the unrequited love she empathizes with
in the somber pop punk songs that explode from the stereo
she sings loudly on cold and lonely night drives
(I shiver in her passenger seat).

And she made for me the greatest of mixtapes,
her holy scrawl expounding upon a dull grey donut-shaped
slowly fading form of intimacy,
a blank CD--

"This mix is a good time"

and when I jammed it into my car stereo I was illuminated.

She is so cool, she is so punk,
and in her clandestine drugstore car charger thefts,
broken poems,
impalpable aesthetic,
impeccable music taste,
illuminated or even further obfuscated drug trips--

I have the world's best kept secret,
and more than anything, I wish to share it with you--

                                     so she can make someone another mixtape.

The left wing and the right
Well you need both to fly
This bird of black and white
Tearfully looks up to the sky
And you know why.

From midnight to five
Punching words, not counting sheep
The Poet clocks in.

"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."

I felt his coarse hands grip mine, too;
I lived through Mr. Hooper vicariously
as I looked down at open palms
spread to the heavens,
illuminated in the flashy brilliance of the glare.

I saw wrinkled, calloused eyes peer into mine;
I stood on that rickety old dock
in my fitted and worn wool cap,
faded denim shirt matching pants
and dingy white tennis shoes.

"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."

My ego crestfallen as well,
pride in my intelligence proven in the Academia
withering, as the gritty gap-toothed
leery-eyed barnacle of a sailor
peered inquisitively into my soul.

He saw the smooth hands--
ah, but the callouses engraved deep between joints
on my fingers; a musician!

His eyes grilled, "In bourgeois leisure,
smiling meekly dwelling within milquetoast afternoon hours,
or,
from downtown haunts sweating jazz in the midnight hour,
dancing screaming cursing moaning lovingly?"
My eyes cast down again.

But I know not of the city as my abode!
I know the ****** and the farmer
more than any contributor to painted landscapes, nay;
they are my acquaintances, neighbors, cousins, brothers, and sisters!

For I have lived on the water;
I have eyed the vessels
commandeered by the gritty, grubby,
greased captains of my soul,

as I float buoyed in their wake,
eager to catch a semblance of the waters
that trail before them.

I live treading their wake,
eyes open and pencil in hand.

And lo;
I found sanctuary in the vast fields of the rustic farmer!

For I ate breakfast of the freshly-slaughtered calf;
I drank its mother's milk,
eggs fresh from the poultry den--
I squawked along with the mother hens.

I took in the bucolic smell of the country
atop the rugged tractor,
eyeing squinting
grimacing like a smile in the sun
burning burning down upon stiff backs
and leather necks--

I, the leaves of grass scattered
in the wake of the farmer,
I, the bails of hay furled tightly
sitting patiently in the once golden meadow,

I watched the tractors and their commandeers
disappear in the bombinate horizon;
the sound of insects ushering in the night sky

like unrolling the starry-eyed carpet
before the hazy late afternoon moon.

I watched, I lived,
waiting coiled in their wakes
eyes wide open and paper clenched in hand.

I lifted my eyes to once again
hear his curt admonition:

"Y'got city hands, Mr. Rhine."

She is
the Ethereal Wonder
and I am her trusty sidekick
Dream Boy.

Her obsequious protégé,
I chop at the shadows
of the baddies
and glass ceilings
to which she delivers
swift kicks and merciless punches.

In the Dream Mobile,
my eyes are at her hand
on the stick shift,
her thumb flipping the
oil slick switch and pressing it—

the sounds of cars screeching and
careening off cliffs
fail to deter me from imagining
the gloved hand in mine.

Off she darts into the fray,
and I hear
the shocked public
gasp,
and the narrator expound,

“Faster than men less qualified but
more likely to get the job,

as powerful as histories
of suffragettes and debutantes,

able to leap over the confines
of impressed domesticity
in a single bound!”

Into her arms fall
the thankful victims
at the last second,

and the baleful embrace
of malevolence
gropes at thin air
where the Ethereal
Wonder once was.

She receives thanks
with a wave of a gloved
hand and bounties
of humility.

She is no damsel in distress,
she is no mere love interest,
and to be her partner
in this great dangerous adventure
will be the most heroic story
ever told—

And perhaps one day she will need saving,
and I will rise to the occasion—
owing my strength, wisdom, and ability
to all she has ever taught me
of being a hero.

Woman at diner who knew Fugazi,
I wear all these pins
on my denim jacket
waiting for someone like you
because a t-shirt isn’t
loud enough.

Woman who knew Fugazi,
waitress at diner,
had “seen them twenty times,”
without exaggeration—

with cracking olive skin
and graying curly black
hair to her shoulders,

the light refracting off my pin
my friend bought at a record store
in Philly      reflecting her the image
of a slender, voluptuous youth
donned in fake leather
worn Levis and beat Vans

shaking her mop of jet-black curly hair
in a throng of like-minded dressed
individuals in a dingy club
          angsty Washingtonians
fleeing the Reagan Youth

mad at Capitalism
mad at Middle Class,
mad at Excess, Abuse, Malaise—
driven by the furious punk rhythms
of sweat-drenched Fugazi.

Woman who knew Fugazi,
friends with Ian MacKaye,
hadn’t seen him in years—

waitress at restaurant
where the scrambled eggs are dry
and the coffee is stale.

Waitress at diner,
Mother now,
wife, adult,

                 [[punk]]
at heart.

My grandfather peels an
X-chromosome off his liquor bottle
skips it across the pool of my mother’s genes
until it reaches me
yellow cigarette stained walls
green ashtray carpet on his tongue
blue back room full of old guitars
black mechanic oil stained hands
sandpaper voice
watching Jaws 4
homeless woman on couch
feeds dog black coffee
brown belly dragging across tongue
Thanksgiving dinners
my brother plays “Purple Haze”
out of a reluctant amplifier
the old folks applaud
the colors are beginning to
fade
he
battling cancer his way
watching Jaws 4
dog now dead
homeless woman now
no longer homeless
back skin where left ear
used to be
old guitars pawned for
drugs
Purple Haze fades to
black as colors do
and they say
it skips a generation
and now when shades
of pink appear white
my tongue grows thick
smoke burns my nostrils
and
I can only think of
how terrible of a film
Jaws 4 is.

“Well if the shoe fits.”

And it never does,
either too tight or too loose,
with my paint-thinner feet,
narrow, knifing through the canvas
heels flopping out at the back
toes mashing together at the front,

pacing between shelves at the store,
growing anxious mom impatient
in the waiting chair,

shifting between sizes,
walking prison-style with shoes zip-tied,
a second, third opinion,
salesclerk gets out the foot measure,
I take my socks off,
put them back on (are they too thick/too thin?)

feet either mashed or cavernous
if the salesclerk crouches down and presses a thumb at the end
and gives me an okay sign
I’ll walk around with ****** toes and bruised heels the rest of my life

because only others can convince me what my body truly feels
because mental illness is impalpable and therefore
unbelievable
and broken bones and black eyes
will perpetually surpass what lingers in my troubled mind
for I know not what the body wants (it’s ***, I think)

no,
I don’t know how it’s supposed to act,
or feel,
so I can let someone else decide for me,
as I let mom order my Happy Meals,
and buy my clothes she picked out,
and tell me what kind of girls I like,
and make my doctors’ appointments,
and file my taxes,
and pay my bills
(I just give her the money),

and I am convinced my body and mind
do not exist on the same plane,
and whatever signals they send each other
I render skewed
and the messenger disabled

and tonight I told mom
the shoes I’ve worn for five days straight
don’t fit
and my feet hurt
and she sighs and laughs simultaneously alongside the family
as she hands me the number to the store

and I halfheartedly wish
she’d make the call
or lean down and press a thumb
to the end of my shoe
and convince me it fits.

--Home, August 19, 1:41 AM

I watched the fan blades rip furiously
on the pale ceiling of my snug room
The ******* of silent airwaves
in auricular, circulatory fashion.

The hum of electricity burning steady
trance                                        inducing
I feel eyes wired poster boys
for a sleepless                               mind.

Thoughts and conscious dreams of
Life:
        Incessant,
                          Voracious,
                                             Alive.
Above small town fantasies:

an Artist.

I'm an artist, by God!
I don't have time to sleep!

I'm going to hold onto my birth certificate
like my mother holds onto receipts

and when I write my last rent check
addressed to whomever lives upstairs

I'll knock on the door

and when they open
I'll kindly flash them the paper
which never expires
and I'll ask
for a refund

and they'll say "No,"
"We only accept exchanges,"

and then I think I'll believe in reincarnation.

I receive your native tongue
like a desperate missionary--

letting it run over my teeth,
stroking the roof of my mouth,
and dancing with my own foreign entity.

I come to you aching
to inhale your exhale,
place my lips to yours.

In the diaspora of spit
from your mouth to mine,
deliver unfathomed riches
of love and wisdom

into my trembling body.

Take me by the hand,
see me through your placid garden.
Walk with me, St. Mary's.

March me in time to your rhythm;
let me wield the mallet that beats your drum.
Sing to me, St. Mary's.

String my sole into the primordial web
within the black walnut tree.
Lay with me, St. Mary's.

Close my eyes and tilt me back;
dip me into the murky pond.
Baptize me, St. Mary's.

Take me down to the fiery shoreline;
we'll linger beneath the countenance of the rugged cross.
Crucify me, St. Mary's.

Sit me by your mystic grave,
cast a silent earthy veil over me.
Bury me, St. Mary's.

Chip me from the rock, free me of these shackles,
rocket me into the heavens.

Liberate me, St. Mary's.

I am here to spread the gospel.
Yes I do declare I am a diligent disciple.

I have come to gaggle the good news,
to proselytize the perpetuity of heavenly wisdom.

I have come here to speak on behalf of poets everywhere:
young and old, alive and dead,
of all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, ****** orientations,
of every human being loitering upon this lush and teeming rock--
I have come to spread your word!

We, the poets,
beg you to hear our words
and put them in your mouth.

Store them in a cheek;
chew thoughtfully, and don't floss,
so we may linger between your teeth--

ready to eject with your spit we shall speak for you
and you shall speak for us.

We lie dead in the dirt until you breath life into us.

We sit poised on your tongue waiting for you to lash
into the air piercing thought bubbles with your voice.

We are instruments lying collecting dust in their cases,
ready to be grasped within calloused hands
and clasped between ruddy lips.

I have come here to tell you how to become a disciple as I:

Lovers, bring us to share!
Speak to your hearts from within worn and jaundiced pages;
we are merely ink stains until you make sense of it all.

Until you speak us into life
Until you soak us into your soul
Until you weave us into the very fibers of your being.

Fighters, bring us to bear!
Shout to your foes from atop grainy soapboxes
embedded within the grassy earth;
let your commanding footing propel you into the heavens!

Feel the wind carry your voice across the open plain and
SPEAK! BELLOW! SHOUT! BATTLE CRY!

They shall know the fear in their bones
and the goose flesh under their rattling armor
like death prickling the hairs on the back of their neck
until they become trodden in the earth like footstools--
until you walk across them head held high and victorious.

Pedestrians! Love if you dare!
Whisper these words under your breath,
holding doors and blessing sneezes,
smiling lovingly and making eye contact purposefully.

Take the joy in stranger's company or in solitude;
we will linger like pleasant specters,
like a lover's ghost:
waiting for you to follow me into eternity.

Yes, I do declare to be a diligent disciple,
and I roam through dusky towns with no pack on my back
nor a shelter over my matted head;

shouting through barren city streets into the desperate night,
roaming these dusty corridors praying a stranger opens their front door
and turns on the porch light
and lets me in for supper and a place to rest my weary head.

Though I'll soon be on my way again in the morrow,
my prayer,
the one of every aching poet in the midnight haze,

is that I'll linger.

Wouldn't it be something
if we knew nothing
and spoke in breaths
airless of pretense
and fell in love
with one another.

Marching on thru our circuital seas:
A moat lurking beneath tremendous Facebook walls,
delineating our impalpable fortress of solitude (irony).

We slog through the trenches like Lee's troops,
drudging on a fatal course
to an awaiting Grant in Appomattox (destiny?).

Soldiers falling at the wayside,
from wounds, starvation, disease,
hashtags for dog tags draped around cadaverous necks--
Perhaps you can identify us by what's trending.

Had we the strength to shout,
and tear down the walls of Digital Jericho,
would we have been able to do it,
in 140 characters or less?

I know love not as an arm around a waist,
nor fingers teasing hair and running down a neck--

but as a temporary tattoo,
and the fleeting taste of Zebra Fruit Stripe Gum.

And just like Da Vinci never slept,
but took several naps a day--
So do I fall in love daily,
but tenfold!

The deep yearning that wells within my soul
and sits as the lump lodged within my aching throat,
I stumble through the day tripping over my enamoredness
towards any kind soul who dares to look my way,
or speak my name,
or touch my hand--

and I want to set up a kissing booth
in the middle of a shopping center
or my college campus,

and solicit others to grant me a taste of their humanity
in the holiest of ways,
man or woman,
young or old,

to but press their lips against mine for a second
and I would become illuminated,
rejuvenated,

and I would leap from my weary mental confines
like a grasshopper springing out of tall grass,
and love would well up within me--

Not as a transient fix,
but an anchor in these uncharted waters,
a cool glass of milk to a parched throat in a late night hour,

outlasting any cheap ****** or content stomach,
and shying away the facade of complacency.

I would burst forth like a battering ram
through the prison cell doors I weep and wallow behind,
and I'd have a skip in my step
that would ferry me across every pond and great lake.

For these hands do not pray,
but they tremble, and they ache.

And these lips do as hands do,
as they rest upon a placid face
that looks in the mirror and reads
of the anguish seeping out of inflamed pores
and burrowing between the creases
alluding a furrowed brow,

and if but a kiss could render one free
from such odious palpations,
then I'll gladly set mine to the liberator,
whomever it may be--

And how many lips does it take
to get to the center of my frozen aching heart?

The world may never know.

Dragged out of warm sheets
Cold floor reaches out to bare feet
Amble shuffle through routine
Eyes closed, still no need to see
Arms reach up to the morning sky
Bones crack and stiff muscles sigh
Yawn escapes mouth open wide
Fight the urge to flee from the light
Get dressed, comb unruly hair
Put on worn shoes, with time to spare
Consult the mirror, if you dare
A glance at the face you choose to wear
Into the kitchen, find the tea ***
Fill with water, and your mind with thought
Turn on the stove, it’s getting hot
Boiling water, a bubbling lot
Pour into cup, greet bag of tea
Milk and sugar, whatever you please
Lean over the cup, confront the steam
That greets your face like warm hands on a cheek
Inhale deeply, take it in
The mark for your day to begin
Your mind awakens, you spring up within
The spice kisses your eyes to finally open
Wrap the cup in icy hands
Warmth tingles cold fingers like a giddy dance
Bring the cup to lips in a spell bounded trance
Eyes close, lips part, cup tilts back in advance
Liquid ecstasy colors red lips
Like the efflorescent rose when sunlight hits
Like the indelible taste of a lover’s kiss
It graces over teeth and tongue, passing bliss
How it colors the body and colors the mind
Leaving traces of weariness behind
Giving life and hope to this new light
To greet today as a gift in life
Start today with a cup of tea
Make it your own, whether bitter or sweet
I hope it means much to you as it does to me
Greet today with a cup of tea.

Sometimes, before bed,
I try on the outfit
I have laid out
for the next day
in front of the mirror.

It’s like
peeking through the
wrapping paper
before Christmas Day.

Sometimes
that outfit neatly tucked
in the corner of my room
by the closet
is the only thing
that will get me out of bed.

After already hitting snooze
for three hours,
first class skipped,
lunch date cancelled,
self-loathing amassing
at an alarming rate—

those neatly folded clothes
look like a savior atop a
carpeted Sea of Galilee.

To mistake it for vanity
is to be the one who
has never feared
once their feet left the bed
they would drown.

I perused through the catacombs
gliding my fingers along your innumerate spines,
picked you up where you blossomed in my palm
and breathed archaic mysteries into my face.

I felt myself trembling
as I dared enter the hallowed corridors,
opening doors and peeking inside
in hopes to catch a semblance of your touch,
your taste,
your voice.

A fingerprint,
a coffee stain,
clues and the origins of bricolage
that left me breathless
and teary-eyed
as the weight of this sacred place
bore itself entirely upon me.

A part of your soul
encased within each one of your treasures:

I heard your stereo in a jazz history,
heard you ponder within Dostoyevsky,
saw your wry smile and charm within Fleming,
and your humor within Vaudeville--

and as I perused onward,
and the archetype bore itself naked in a holy privilege,
I closed myself within that impalpable bubble
and wept at the gates of Eden.

As I removed my hands from your ribcage,
and withdrew the breath from your nostrils,
walking away with your words and fragments of your soul
I soon realized--

You Are What You Read.

These days the human race
is red-faced
in a battle of wits and wallets
over a Walmart shopping cart
Insanity.

A Christmas wish in a shopping list
the ultimate gift
unattainable
slaving over a hot stove for the perfect dish.

Christmas tradition
is more a religion
Crosby's voice
silky smooth over the radio airwaves

next to a roaring fire
surrounded by loved ones
while another outside loses their ear
to the cold.

From rags to riches
we're less familiar with the former
than the latter
we have to close our eyes

to silence the clatter
of sleigh bells a crackling fire
soothing Crosby and wishing wells
75 percent off and Hallmark originals

blinding Christmas lights up before our neighbor
lasting 'til the 4th of July
the only part of Christmas that makes it
beyond the winter season.

Lights still ever brighter in the hungry eyes
gazing upon shiny paper masking
a rectangular treasure trove of financial woes
shoved under the carpet 'til the tax returns
are our saving grace.

But what of the shining light
that pointed to a springing plight
foreshadowed in a squalid den
where a savior's life would begin?

He soon received gifts of men who lay at his feet
in worship of a hope in the flesh
they'd thought they would never meet

if the child only knew then that He would later be gifted with
a crown of thorns, the spit and curses of his friends, the kiss of a traitor, nails in his hands and feet to a splintered wooden cross.

What if we traded our presents for his presence
Sought our brothers and sisters in love because of his gift
one we could never have given but can graciously receive
one we will never deserve or earn but by his love we are set free.

If we set our eyes to the unseen how much more we will see clearly
that we can shed this wrapping paper like wiggling free of a spider's webbing
that we can no longer fret over the perfect gift because its already been given.

This Christmas season, lets get back to the reason
we love and we live, we laugh and we give
not in the vicious cycle of materialism and consumption
but in the holy light of grace and redemption.

Saving face
is not
my saving grace.

For Aleš, who reads pacifist novels during wartime

I

For the Millennials:
Victims of opportunity,
Saviors of humanity.

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

We, the Confounded Chiliads,
are the electrified pulsating
offspring of the digital age:
Serendipitous,
enigmatic
vagabonds of the modern world.

Standing juxtaposed between
two centuries,
two generations:
Redeemers of the new millennium.

We’ve read the writings on the wall,
for they have been by our own hand.
Blood dripping down the fluorescent page,
the endless scroll that consumes our gaze.

Gaping holes in our hands and feet,
screaming telephone poles pin us to the magnetic current.

We are trapped but we are not alone.

With every word we bleed,
with every eye to our flesh,
our cries are drowned in the digital void.

We have been washed away by alluded idiosyncrasies,
never unanimous nor harmonious;
feeling our fingers tie into knots,
mangled, finagled, wringing, hovering like a
Ouija board over menacing letters.

We close our eyes and feel them
burning within our skull.

So many voices, so many bodies,
pouring into our thoughts;
endless rainfall
drowning the long coveted silence.

So desperate for the parting
of ***** storm clouds,

for a sign from heaven
to pierce through the ceaseless night,

to cast its lovely gaze upon us
like a father’s warm and gentle hand,
lifting up downcast faces.

We toil in our anguish,
suffering information overload;
a whole race of individuals
accumulating into a massive “I told you so.”

Every wish, every genius mind,
every glance into the future,
every crystal ball rubbed,
Electric Eye awakened

as the dream sighs into existence;
the blending of fact and fiction
in the prophesies of Fathers Orwell and Huxley:
maddened forlorn oracles of modernity.

As we cross the rivers of Babylon
to find ourselves swimming in
the Fountain of Youth
we escape dripping, exhausted;
aching bodies shivering.
They drape expensive towels around us,
breathing warmly on our exasperated shells
of humanity.

Our mortal vessels no longer capable of
carrying our fragile identities,
we leap out of their torpid mouths
exposing the gelatinous crustacean.

Amorphous brain matter
sponge-like, soaking up
the sweat of our plunder and plight—
Clinging desperately as our liberators

pry us off the wet earth
like barnacles off a ship’s keel,
wringing us out
over the supper bowl:
the thin soup of mortal consciousness.

Feeling our voices and vices,
virtues and virulence,
mingling together;
meshing into one.

The hive mind descends upon us,
protruding a gaping straw
from its abdominous being;
sticking it into the electric ocean,
proceeds to **** life up into its
wrinkly, sickly tightened mouth.

Past the gleeful tongue,
down the throat;
tumbling over each other aimlessly
in the darkness—
limitless potentialities.

Directionless;
ambiguous
voices in the dark:
cavernous, mindless cacophony.

Echoes bouncing off
the windows of my soul,
I tumbled into the darkness
lost, and afraid.

“The world is yours!”

I never feel my feet stop moving.

Our nightmarish episode of consumption concludes,
leaving us moaning, naked, confused in the depths:
Haunting spirits wandering these novel dwellings
built on the backs of the olden brutes
and the barbarous archetypic minds of the Marxist prophets.

In this world of post-civilization,
we are post-human(e) in our efforts;
unable to gain a foothold in the foundation—
more quicksand than earth and stone.

Our seeds were thrown to the weeds and the crows.

II

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

I glance at the others: gangly gangrenous guiles!
Feasting on each other, never growing any stronger;
clawing out each other’s eyes, spitting in their mouths,
screaming utterances most foul in their ears.
Climbing over each other in the obscurity, unseen.  

I want them to take my eyes.
I want them to take my ears.
I want them to take my voice.
I want them to squelch the flame
that burns within my cadaverous chest.

Surrendering any chance of agency;
if there were hands to bite,
I couldn’t see.
I hear the voices shouting,
but I can’t cut through the discord.

What if I hold my breath?
But I know that won’t last.
Feeling my lips turn purple,
the kick drum in my chest:

furious relentless crescendo
pace quickening mind’s racing
all the sins in the world
rotting in my soul inescapable
pounding at the door
clock ticking through the floor
lungs shrivel can’t take anymore—

Exhale.

Panting, hands on my knees,
ears perk up to the sound of malicious snickering.
I lift my gaze up to an eclipse of the moon,
so ghastly in fresh blemishes plaguing its majesty.

Squinting,
I see smiling faces,
eyes full of mocking laughter,
belonging to snide children
anxiously peering into the crowded fishbowl.

They watch us squirm without water,
dancing in aching bodies,
craving the touch of something cool,
and refreshing.

They dangle hope and promise like
lifeless puppets encircling
an infant’s crib.

I watch them tie onto simple strings:
wealth, and
power, and
love, and
belonging.

Reaching higher, and higher,
straining formless muscles,
feeling weakness overcome
creeping up like a tired conscience
climbing over the golden crest
atop the transparent foothills
encased in the nicotine screen skyline.

It hangs its head low
on its hands and knees,
lifting up a weary voice
so familiar and ignored.

A final sigh ringing in the ears of a generation:
A cough, and then a final weak sputter:
“I Told You So.”

III

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

Anchored to the next big thing
sitting below deceptive still waters
murky mysterious
loathesome beast
peeking an eye out to catch us peering
over the edge of the docks
a glimpse at the promised eternity
immortality
delusion of grandeur
our eyes to the shore
nostalgia preserved
in the retellings of folklore
childhoods never forgotten
for fear of being lost in the present
and the forthcoming future
always a step away
how can we move on
when we’re busy cutting off our legs
to be eye level with our inner child
more like an exoskeleton
more exposed than our need
to grow
we sit huddled in our bemired despair
grinning sheepishly exposing our sin
crying out to the gargantuan
overlord of childlike fantasy
wielding our innocence
like a button-eyed ragdoll gluttonous treasure keeper
playing with fire in the alchemist’s den
so close to our material wealth
with the flames roaring lapping at our heels
feeling the dock begin to break from dry land
from the weight of our inflated consciences/consciousness
following the fangs of the snake to our parents
on the shore
with one hand sweating on the television remote
strangling in its grasp
they have no choice
but to squeeze the pump
harder and faster
legs of flesh and bone
break and give way
we begin to drift from the shore
pulling closer to the murky behemoth
that lurks under the perpetual offing
in the empty horizon we cry our broken hearts
into its cosmic bowels
feeling ourselves being sifted through
the hungry machinery of death
eyes luminous we shield our faces
from its rapturous gaze
fearful of the pillar of salt
that will stand in our place
but we look back
we take our hand off the plow
with ***** and Gomorrah at our backs
we peer through the electric eye
the sands of time
pouring through the hourglass
that spits us into the depths
of eternal strife.

IV

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!
Twentynothing!
Twentynothing!
Twentynothing!

Tw­entynothing in the classrooms!
Twentynothing in the workforce!
Twentynothing in the bathrooms!
Twentynothing in our parents' wars!

Twentynothing in the golden streets!
Twentynothing in the broken homes!
Twentynothing in the dusty libraries!
Twentynothing in the TV's drone!

Twentynothing in the Promised Land!
Twentynothing in the songs we sing!
Twentynothing in the secret plans!
Twentynothing in freedom ring!

Twentynothing in hands over hearts!
Twentynothing in our love in bed!
Twentynothing in the obscure route’s start!
Twentynothing in the lies we've read!

Twentynothing in the lives we fear!
Twentynothing in the scholar’s debt!
Twentynothing in our guns held dear!
Twentynothing in the tables set!

Twentynothing in the colors of skin!
Twentynothing in the reality show!
Twentynothing in the losses and win!
Twentynothing in the nightmares below!

Twentynothing in the kisses we hide!
Twentynothing in the I O U’s!
Twentynothing in the chanting of pride!
Twentynothing in the love you too’s!

Twentynothing in the hope we give!
Twentynothing in the dread they moan!
Twentynothing in the time we live!
Twentynothing in the chance we own!

Muse-less, useless, Twentynothing!

In the post-modern world aimless!

We, the Confounded Chiliads:
We are dangerous,
We are longing,
We are hopeful,
We are broken,
We are serendipitous—
We are eternal.

We Are Twentynothing.

…and that’s **** well something.

I left
immaculately folded tan chino pants
cuffed and disheveled
atop the department store rack
in the Young Men’s section.

They were too big at the waist,
letting me swim laps in them,
stretching out the front with a thumb and forefinger
looking like a successful weight loss ad.

Atop the rack they sat,
cuffed and disheveled,
amongst immaculately folded
tan chino pants
its kin
and they looked human.

Something about them,
factory made, dime a dozen,
not on sale,
but with the spectral imprint
of spaces and wrinkles where legs had been
amongst all those patient, forlorn folds
gave humanity
to the anomaly.

Show me your wounds
The blood at your feet
The fear in your eyes
The scars cut in deep.
Scream your pain at me
Tear your lungs in despair
Lose your voice in the world
Leaving you without at care.
Fall to your knees
Smash your fist to the ground
Gravels digs into your knuckles
A familiar taste you have found.
Rain pours from the sky
Eternal clouds of gray overhead
You feel no cleansing in its touch
You're simply washing away with the dead.
Look to your side
Turn your eyes so to see
You're not in this alone
You will always have me.
See the bloodstains on my clothes
The scars cut in deep
The tears in my eyes
The pain that I keep.
I'll wash away with you
I'll share in your pain
I'll carry your burdens
I'm here to stay.
Share with me your struggles
Share with me your suffering
I want the cross that you carry
I want you, entirely.

no more.

On the living room couch,
I asked my phone a verbal question:
"What is an albatross?"

And before it could answer,
my father began his reply
from the kitchen counter--

To be cut short by my phone who had finished thinking,
the screen flashing a series of definitions for "albatross"
and reading them aloud to me.

My father stopped, and looked at me forlornly.

I daren't look back--
And the sound of a heart breaking,
whether mine or his,
and the silence it engulfed,
was hidden under the blanket of the contraption's monotone voice.

A little more humanity was lost today,
and my father yet again was faced with the reality that
even if he had all the answers,
as he had in my inquisitive childhood--

No one was left to ask him the questions.

so he had my number because we met for tutoring on Wednesdays after class but he would text me really late at night asking me the weirdest stuff i would politely say this is incredibly inappropriate and i would not like to talk like this with you but still around two am he would text me lewd stuff again and again then asking if i would go on a date i said dude i am old enough to be your mother imagine if
a guy
          received texts
          like that
                    from a girl
                                  insisting to do ****** stuff BUT
he
would
have
liked
it.

Can you smell the decaf
in coffee breath

or palpate the aesthetic in
clothes bought
secondhand

the former amidst
those groaning to work
praying to caffeine gods
to jolt nerves into existence

the latter walking through shopping malls
spying the guise on mannequins
without frays and tears
mocking the Dickensian reflection.

Is the placebo
the one without the caffeine rush
and the credit card debt

or is it the one
who believes it will all
make them happier in
the end.

I must write!*
The transient words pass by my consciousness
like the piercing lights that take dull eyes aback
and linger for a few brief moments in the peripherals--
before disappearing back
into the heavens.

Curse these confounded ink-stained fingers;
your scribblings barely get the thoughts out in time,
and you do so with mortal wounds
of aches and cramps,
and god-forbid,
your pen runs out of ink!*

So you keep your tools sharp
and your stone tablets at hand,
for when transcendent light strikes again:

You will be not be caught off-guard
by serendipity.

you make me want to listen to Alkaline Trio
ironically,
for their morosity
is no longer my own. and maybe

they'd be happy for me. happily
singing their songs
with a different
lung.

Privilege: written on my skin
I swear I'm on your side
Though I lock my doors when you pass by.
Try to ignore what's within
The enraged masses to whom I spoke
Though I'm guilty of what's battered down their throats.
Get me by the *****
The phallicist marvelously displayed in power
Squeeze out every drop of lust; watch me shrivel and cower.
Place me within these walls
Walking along your glass ceiling as I dream
Fondling your ******* on behalf of the company.
I'm no passerby
Though I weave you on the street like a fleeting ghost
I serve like you're a growth and I'm the lucky host.
It's a **** good lie
To myself; believe I'm not guilty too
Of all the hate and greed that's crippling you.

Our love is
like a polaroid
picture. We let

Time and Chemicals
do their work. Yet

my love,
the picture was
taken long
ago.

I declare my home to be tucked within the wreathed *****
of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
where I know them as my silent guardians
watching over me;

til I taste saltwater on my tongue,
and find my taste buds alight
with the spread of steaming Blue *****--
doused aplenty in Old Bay--
spread atop disheveled newspaper on the kitchen table.

Suddenly, water becomes "wooter,"
and wash becomes "warsh,"
and I laugh and skip rocks along the waters
that baptized me in my infancy.

That is, until the Old North State
wraps me in her misty shawl,
where I find myself barefoot on grassy acres--
wild dogs running in packs amiably--
and I race makeshift boats of sticks and water bottles
down the ole crik.

I close my eyes and feel faint and brisk breezes
caress my face like a mother's hand,
gently guiding me through dense woods
where imagination and reality forged an alliance.

So where do I call home?
Well that's entirely up to you,
whether you send my head into an ear-popping,
mind-whirling dizzy spell--
euphoric in higher elevations and getting lost in the foliage;
or you put a plate of steaming ***** before me with saltwater kisses on your lips.

I am the Oriole of the Blue Ridge,
and the Cardinal of the Chesapeake:
The White Oak and the Longleaf Pine.

Smoke scintillated by ***** lights
Scent of cheap beer and cigarettes
Arms and legs and heads and butts
                mashed
      mangled
            mingling

In a space ejecting bravado
responding to the auricular bludgeons
plucking veins and boiling blood
arms and legs flailing like spiders
hammered by raindrops

Calloused voices scream through feedback
eking out of anguished amplifiers
while jungle drums synchronize hearts
to their frantic pulse

New friends old friends celebration
in sweaty embraces chanting screaming
stumbling outside the gates of eternity
sidewalk where we gathered round the sordid soapbox
and cast beleaguering gargantuan buildings
and endless cataclysmal streets
into abeyance

to prance along these old sidewalk cracks
stumbling along cigarette butts and beer cans
efflorescing under amative neon lights whose bombinate glow
tingles our skin and dazzles our eyeballs
rolling back into our skulls in the wake of ecstasy
billowing over our ambulant bodies

Friday nights
     Saturday nights
              Sunday nights
skipping school on a week day
braving city night life to find us in the nooks
they forgot to sweep out
where trash collects and pretends
to be unwavering and implacable
for a moment

Til it's back on the streets we spill out upon like puke
like the beer sticking to checkerboard floors
and we float home on the feedback high singing in our ears to sleep
dreaming of these ecstasies as something perennial
in punk lover's dreams

Pure when we're filthy.

Eccentricity
At a cost unknowingly
The love between us.

Words tumbled out of an aluminum commode
into a hungry mouth: naïveté.

Libations atop a tin altar
in a squalid temple rife with the stench
of lascivious youth
bemoaned battle cry
transcendent in the sound of forever.

Coming of Age
a cleverly disguised charade
kept in place
by a smile that never breaks
until dawn.

White noise
cryptic static
proselytize
vomiting mucus-draining corpses
a parade of mindless disciples
dancing to the beat
of the heart in a distant star
whose life perished in the forgotten past.

Fabricated promises of maturation
facetiae in the frozen teeth that
only part for the stubborn tongue to
lap up remaining consciousness on the floor
like a begging dog.

By himself he's weak
but among many he's a god.

A song bludgeons the eardrums
"Tonight, tonight, to-night": Repetitio est mater studiorum.

There's a voice in my head but
you put a hand o'er it's mouth
and pried mine open with
the monkey's paw
clutching a rose goblet
containing spiritual cleansing.

I've got a good idea
but bad intentions
and there's enough feculence wrapped in flesh and lies
to make this place feel like Heaven.

Stuffing my mouth with promises and
fallacies
that won't become clear until the
bottle is empty.

I'm washing away all the pain
and the hurt
right?
I'm a man now, risen from the
dirt
right?

I'll put my trust in the siren's call
reaching through the fog to grasp
her by the hair
I fall into the murky bog
beleaguered by strangulating tendrils
wrapping around my frail bones
I feel I'm being pulled under
and I'm all alone
I see their shimmering faces on the surface
distorted
in the reflection
peering into the soul as I
make my descent into the abyss.

Waking up a man with a
battered conscience
Compromise wraps a warm blanket around
me and places coffee between
crusty and brittle fingers
A gentle kiss on my forehead
is the finishing touch
leaving me alone with my baleful torment.

Coming of Age is a charade.

Mother pulled the beat to hell diluted blood red minivan containing my brother and I into the darkened parking lot. The car couldn't park fast enough as my brother and I tore the creaky side door open and leapt onto the awaiting pavement. We stepped from darkness into light as we hopped onto a curb to be greeted by the brilliance of neon lights erected atop a single story rectangular building squatting at the top of the rectangular lot like a full measure rest. Glass windows as whole walls teased the treasures that lay before my eyes window-shopping like madmen I felt the objects of my covetry leap from their white shelves into my sweaty youthful grasp. Mother breezed forward, stepping across the tier confidant and disengaged; the front door rang announcing our presence. Two bells sounded: ring ring. The Rhines were here. Like a pistol shot signifying the start of a race, my brother and I scampered and scattered and scuttled like wild animals, scouring the shelves that sat dispersed through the gleaming room consuming with our eyes words that told stories with pictures that danced and sang. Clusters of shelves huddled together under several flat signs hung by frail strings dangling from the ceiling displaying themes that told me where to avoid "Romance" and where to find my beloved "Science Fiction." I halted, realizing almost as if there were indentations within the itchy carpet that had alerted me to the place where I had cemented by ruddy feet countless times before. I took my roving eyes from the stalling ground to peer up into the shelves that loomed over me like giants, arching over my head like holy stones erected atop holy celebratory sites of yore. My fingers traced along the shelves trailing over the innumerate plastic spines that encased my bountiful riches; I mouthed the vibrant words imprinted like cattle on each of them and sang to myself stories that spawned off of each one before finding the paragon that most expertly weaved JR the Raconteur into its fabrications. I bore into its dazzling shell hungrily, gobbling up faces and places and names and dates I spun it over to its backside to read plots to read histories to read legacies to read memories I read and read and saw and saw my mind was never more alive with the astounding conception of limitless potentialities my night was just getting started and with my final selection--and mother's blessing--I would march home victoriously wielding my fortune, my medium for which the pictures in my mind would transpose and dance before me like luminous sprites on the brilliant splendor of a luminescent two dimensional stage that is the television screen. It was the weekend getaway I waited for with anticipation every Saturday; I was an unversed monk relishing in the ancient libraries of History.

Kiss me to "Mr. Brightside"
with that same sense of yearning--

It came on in the gas station
at 1:00 AM
and I thought of us

locking moist lips
in a desperate embrace

slipping on the slick tile floor
and knocking over the candy boxes

smashing into the frozen glass
and spilling peach tea
all over us--

that guitar riff is weeping with lust
and I am
insatiable.