Months of stale, cigarette smoke
and spilt **** water pleasantly
offset the stench of cheap cologne
and ratty, abused furniture.
    
Fictitious stories occupy this tiny, dim
apartment, birthed on the lips of
rebellious juveniles whose tongues
pierce the ears of our elders.

In a forsaken corner, Jeremy lounges
awkwardly on a grubby-plaid sofa that
suitably complements his button-down shirt.  
I join him.

Behind his right ear rests a lonely cigarette, while
another sits snug between his lips, set ablaze
by the 1968 Slim Model Zippo he inherited from
his beloved grandfather.

His transparent sense of self-worth emanates
from his grubby, grease-stained hands, scuffed boots,
blotchy-checkered flannels, and faded blue jeans
that are completely obliterated with holes.

I look into his pale blue eyes, the depth of which
often goes unrecognized.  Jeremy is a soft-hearted,
pudgy youngster with the kind of chunky cheeks
that all grandparents love to torture.  

But his marred, acne-ridden face betrays the transition
that has been forced upon him.  Slowly, his trademark
grin appears across his face – subtle, mischievous, and
typically without reason.  But this time it appears justified.

Jeremy takes a moment’s break from his cigarette to drop two
hits of acid.  A new drug for him, he hopes to find relief from
his seething anxiety, evidenced now by the wide expansion of his
chest as he takes another, more lengthy and powerful pull from his cigarette.

The mundane chatter that fills the room continues, a seeming
necessity to offset any potential awkward silence. I feel as if
this noise is closing in around us.  But just as suddenly as I
feel overwhelmed by this sensation, the noise stops.

I look around, noticing everyone’s eyes staring in my
direction.  Jeremy is still next to me, now giggling
like a little school girl.
I begin to feel sick.

Jeremy swiftly leans forward, giving his
cigarette a premature but honorable
death, eliminating its glow as he smashes
the cherry into tiny bits against the ashtray.

As he sits back against the couch, I can see that
his eyes are now indifferent. Foreign.  With a perplexed
and fascinated stare, he watches the pearly-white smoke
slowly slither upwards towards the ceiling.

There’s no question in my mind that his
soul has fled. Jeremy sinks further into the
couch, turning his vacant eyes in my direction.
I want to *****.

His high-pitched giggle has now subsided into a
low whimper.  Gradually extending his left arm into
the air, he tilts it from side-to-side, examining it as if
an infant discovering his genitals for the first time.  

Bike wheels appear in the corners of the room.
Entertained, his eyes rapidly zigzag from the
corners of the walls to his hands. He asks me
if I can see the wheels. I don’t respond.

Intervals of psychotic emotion begin to cycle. Jeremy’s eyes
fill with tears as he tries to understand the hallucinations
engulfing him.  The expression on his face betrays the reality that
he has stepped onto the never-ending theme-park ride from hell.  

Together we leave and walk to the bus station, Jeremy
walking slowly and whimsically. The bus arrives,
and I hand him a few crumpled, single-dollar
bills as I attempt to instruct him where to get off.  

All I can envision is his mother’s first reaction to her son’s arrival.  
Would she collapse at her son’s knees, crying like a mother whose boy
has come home from war?  Would he forever be an awkward guest
at the dinner table? Would she disown him?  Would he become a feral child?






I no longer know what day it is. I am surrounded by lockers
and students, trapped in a tunnel of shadowy walls.  As I stand
alone, I find myself entranced by the blinding, January sunlight
that floods through the double doors a mile away.

My vision is unexpectedly blocked by a figure
standing in front of me. Clothed in little but jeans
and a bright, white t-shirt, Jeremy stares at me, his eyes
mirroring the emptiness I now feel.  

“Do you have a lighter?”  My hands pointlessly search my pockets for
what I already know is not there. “No, man. Sorry.” A look of confusion
spreads over his face, and I suddenly cannot help but notice the sick irony
of the scene in front of me - Jeremy flooded in light as if born again.  

My thoughts linger here too long, and just as swiftly as Jeremy
appeared, he is a mile away sauntering out through those double
doors. Estranged, I continue to stand here, hoping with
futility that this isn’t the last time I have looked upon him.

No more komakazee crows
No more angry nehibors and
Their apple guns.
No more slow winks.
No more toilet bowls
And no more ham.
No more wet hair after a shower.
No more drooling on my face.

Remember that **** dog.
Remember you and him kissed like eskimos.
Remember sleeping in my train tunnel.
I wish I still played with trains.
I wish I still played euphonium.
I wish we never lost our house.

My old friend, is it time for me to go away.
You were the last.
The last pet mom ever will own.
She told us no more animals.
She cried tonite,
She said im so sorry soxy.

A longntime ago
A longtime 6 hours in school felt.
A long strected out cat
Waited for us on the steps.
I rubbed my face in his glossy chest.
I rubbed my third grade nose up and down
His body hoping for a play bite.
His tongue licked my ears three times,
Three times until he took a bite.
My hands resembled the bird,
The bird he never killed.
He turned me into a contortinist.
He made  my leggs cramp.
He made my matress his middle ground.
His middle my yoga sleep.

After showers he hunted my head.
He layed on my face.
He licked my dripping buzz cutt.
He licked the milk off of my first mustache.
He ruined the left over ham.
He made my favorite sandwhich
A challenge.
He could smell me open the can and mix the
Mayonase with pickles.
He left me a dead mouse on my train tracks.
He had white drops of paint on his paws.  
White furry paint,
Mom told us he had sox on his feet,
He was born with the name we gave him
Sox not socks,
Not the socks you get tired of wearing.
Not the socks you get mixed up durrning laundry.
Our sox kept us on our toes.
Our sox.
The **** cat
That really owned our house.
Hell always be sox,
The **** cat,
The **** voice my brother made up.
The **** drool I let rub against my face
Will never go away.  

Ill kiss him like an eskimo.
Ill biuld him a eskimo fire
And hope he chooses to
rub noses with My dog J.C again
I hope he goes gently into the nite (Dylan Thomas).

we brought you here because your father has written a strange book.  there’s very little in it about you.  we think the aim of the book is to make people sad.  news anchors, you name it.  not much in it is hard to believe.  my wife looked at me last night as if I had no secrets.  I say we but it’s just me and her.  we live in a drug free neighborhood.  look, if I had my way, Pilate would’ve made Christ wear a bowtie.  the title of the book is lesson plans for orphans.

Deny yourself; deny everything. There is no reason for which you should be real. Your existence is very implausible. **** yourself so you can finally live! Good news: If your therapist asks when was the last time you cried, shame-crying doesn't count! "Oh, she's so cute. I bet she doesn't wake up screaming in the middle on the night, and can get through a day without doubting her own existence three times. I wish I were that attractive." It is true what they say, highschool is the best time of your life. However, nobody said it would be any good, they just said it'd be better than what comes next. He knew, even as he befriended BatteriesPlus on Facebook, that his life had hit rock bottom. It pained her to set her clocks back each Fall, knowing she couldn't set them back far enough to undo all her failures. His doctor stopped asking if he was sexually active years ago. A reason to live is at the same time a great cause to die for, so it is better to just go about life despondently, constantly sighing. I'm just two iPhone Apps away from never having to talk to a human being in real life again. You can also make a difference in the life of a child by killing their pet in front of them. He'd always believed that death wasn't the end of the journey, but then he took a basic biology class. Can't sleep. But at least now I can tell all of you from experience that an identity crisis and stabbing anxiety mix wonderfully into an energy-giving pernicious compound. Especially at 1:30 am.
mix wonderfully
mix wonderfully
mix wonderfully
mix wonderfully
mix wonderfully
mix wonderfully

bildings in roowins
I rite with brokin-hand


it is the year of the unlord-tyms 2085
and skool hadbin abolishd since fyv decades
evrything in disrepair -
                    no hospitills no parks
                    no creche no greens
all grey and dark

now here I lie amid the rubble
I see they took my legs for under-market
what else did they take?
**** *******!
belly rumbles
the last I'd eaten was 2 days on
a chunk of hard-bread whose colour would turn envy in its boots
with artifishal-milk whose curdled smile greeted the back of my arid existence

**** bastarrrrrrds! they put me under, sawed off my legs
left me hobbling with jagged wounds and smirk-pain like hot-rods searing my brand-new stubs
elementary-bandage of an old sheet torn into strips...

wait, I must use this anger as fuel to get me going
she told me so
many, many times..




(I can remember my mother reading to me
reciting from her memory
they had burnt evry-single-book Man had ever known
                My eyes have never been graced with a book
but
she tort me words with stick in sand
and counting with stones
and there were many stones
               she fed me poetry when there was little else to eat
with fainting-body and starving-belly
my mind took pleasure in her ultimate-care
               she told me of a time when childrin took poor-interest
in the blessings of a book.. wen their minds were swallowed wholemeal by what they called media, I think
when they were not saddled with the worry of their next meal's magical-appearance
                (I can spell 'their' at least, yes.. she made sure I knew the difference)
the only pictures I saw were the ones she drew for me
in the volcanic beach-sand when we ran away from the parasitic-city
                I knew nothing of the world but what I saw around me
                        - decay, decay, decay
until she brought me colour - rite into the hart of me -
                           blooms that hurt at first, so bright and giving
                           that it saturated every molecule in my parched-centre
                           and I became a rainbow-suffused capsule in a otherwise drab-society
such wonder she spoke with open-eyes and loving-tones

and I also remember.. the day they took her..
I remember.. too much)



I crawl forward like a snake in the .. wait, what was that expreshin again?
I'll think later when I find a place to harbour my broken-body
                     thought is a luxury here
thers a horrible smoke in the air
          stings me so
and I miss her so
I have nobody left
but I cannot feel forsaken, as so many do
and succumb to self-pity
she made sure my armour grew
                 from the inside.. first
yet.all.the.while.she.watered.my.hungry.mind
and I took it with disbelief painted on my face
the things she told me about..




                I cannot believe there once were -
green fields and trees with chirping birds
a blue sky
blue? not possible
I've never seen a blue sky
I think she was being kind to paint me portraits of psychedelia
   to entertain and distract me
   from the horror of our lives
I heard tales of things called flowers - daisies and things
like vegetables and fruit
it seemed funny to me - little beings in the ground,
                                       growing
                                       standing rooted, awaiting harvest-hands
               just for people??
uncredibill
waaaat???
no..  such depth of kindness I can hardly imagine
for we have had only *hard-earth.. most concreted
and drank only brack-water from collapsing pipes
no, an unforgiving-scene is all I know
yet
     she is so kind to feed me such fantasy-tales of deep-imaginashin
     pity she could not tell any others
     for any tenth-of-a-whisper of this to any wrong-ear
and her head would roll
in the gutter.. where we lived in contest with rats
she could only rally my mind and relay things which would die with her
things that she bequeaths
to me

what will I do with it? this legacy of forgotten-paradise..
what can I do?   this wonder-clad heresy..
                I now know thers a way out these city walls
                ther is a life beyond
with valleys and rivers and salty-seas
I must try to find a river
she told of oceans which live - which heave and swell and move!
she said these things too .. they exist
what quaint-things, indeed
oh, for dreems..

but now, I must off the streets
for a double-darkness has begun to fall
when red-eyes will scour the streets for scraps of flesh
        anything is worth a barter
        even a dead-man in a lane whose eyeballs are gone
        harshly-hacked out living - by a previous-visitor
becomes a piece of currency for seekers of the dark

I don't know what they've done to her.. or where she is now..
yet, she always said - keep moving
                                   keep searching
for blue-sky and flowing-rivers and yellow-flowers..
(I wonder if it's real
I do believ her - I must)*




now I scrape on in haste into a darkening-alley
towards a derelict-bilding
whose sinister-interior is the only welcome it can afford me
             I have little choice
             no time for sentiment
plus, I feel a fever coming (perhaps this is all the dreem.. and she is the only-flower I know)
the night-Rats will come out soon
and I hate their stink
it doesn't help I leave a trail of blood..




now
only hoap lives
on
in hobbled-soul

as I rite on with brokin-hand
onto the back-pages.. of my mind




S T -  5 octoblah

Take my hand to continents only known in the books,
the blue maps on tiny tables sat in stacks
ready for the lesson on Mexico, or thereabouts- third this week because
the timetable is weak, poorly thought through and cobbled
together out of half-dressed evenings in the lounges of
teachers; ones once loved by the master and mistresses, leaders
of the well dressed and caretakers.

Take my feet and walk with them, balancing
on borders separating language and currency,
the gymnast's beam looking out over the forestry,
its taller trees than you and me standing upon toes tipping
down towards the urgent ground, urgently warning to stay
upright and stick around, with her holding your hand.