In a moment of
unplanned voyeurism
like walking into a bathroom
unlocked and occupied

the exposed often seems
a parody
of the clothed self.

on a city swing set
a boy flies
perched for a brief second
on a sunbeam
before gravity rips him
back down from the clouds
and away from the
green chain link fence he faces.

as i drove by,
i wondered
if the thought had
crossed his mind
that a few inches from today
he would be
too tall to ride
the already aged sunbeams;

too tall to ride
one final time
knees scraping the
pockmarked metal and
he, i imagine, will
sigh quietly,
exhaling a body temperature breath
that will dissipate
before it has
the chance to cool.

already past, i
will be even farther gone
before the air
absorbs a piece of him,
memories of a green chain link fence
facing a rusting swing set.

And in the instant
she breathed
out judas
the world fell
from beneath her,
barely audible and

in the instant
she breathed out judas,
the world fell,

watch the world fall
from beneath you too.

I
slow and
rosy fingertips
apologized
to a final strip of pavement
as they brushed the
remaining crumbs of
sunlight into a different sky &

I sat on the porch
for 17 minutes,
recording the halos of thinly suspended
rain, bright and ringed,
dissolving behind each car
until you came outside
to drive me back home

II

"I'm a nomad"8
he exhaled, smoke rising
from the hand not occupied
by the steering wheel.

she looked at him,
and then away.
she did not
watch his eyes.

"I'll come to you."


---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----------
&"...The rotational period and seasonal cycle [of the planet NowWhat] are likewise similar to those of earth, as is the tilt that produces the seasons..."

8"Peripatetic nomads, who offer the skills of a craft or trade to those with whom they travel, are most common in industrialized nations."

I discovered
as of late, that I
have been arguing
for a reality
that has never really existed.

Its funny
how the stripes
on your shirt
indicate the inexact
shape of your
*******.

They prescribe it
for anxiety and
morning sadness.

It sets you in
a sort of halo,
but leaves the
pebble in your heart.

he's been
very good
lately about
losing his parts.

it's been at least a
month since we've
had to piece him
back together.

See how her cheeks blush
So feverishly, hands tremble
As she paces and sighs repeatedly.

Some would call it love,
but she knows
It’s only the amphetamines.

I asked a stranger once,
what is fortune?

is it the sands that
erased great alexander’s
cruel body?

or  waking to find
a man whose golden eyes sing
the hymns of a simpler time,
the tiniest Midas sideshow?

and she looked at me,
breathed deeply and spoke,

fortune is the bargaining chip
of the broke.

Nonchalant on
the way to the bathroom
he said
"we're all girls here"

He takes his testosterone on
tuesdays; the alliteration
seems to fit the occasion.

a dusty family
hangs on the wall.

never touched,
they never fall.

"spend time in my shoes"
but pride will have me barefoot
unrepentant child

Oh how strange you are
little joker card, pinned against the wall.
I'm glad to see you there, my friend
you havent moved at all!
you're in good company, you see
with two others just like you.
one standing upon his head and grinning
the other one riding a wheel thats spinning
and you, my friend are at the beginning
of the strangest tale of all.

I've gathered you here because I feared
that something was amiss.
I could not find my friends, you see
they've taken to the mist.
so take heed, little joker cards,
be quick and run away
and when I leave the room, I know
you will sing and dance and play.

Stay mute for me so i can imagine
all that you have left to say

Truly, we are wonderful creatures,
drawn to light's undulating swells,
Sailors enthralled by the pushing sea's great shuddering
We honor these bright particles by our  presence

Yet we burrow away, mole men and women for
Our most primal act, instinctual to the muscle
But still insulted by vanities.
(The consequence of consciousness,
I suppose) you instructed, "Turn off the last light"

Do you not wish to admire me?
The tender swell of brain and breast sloping to meet
Crags of hipbone jutting promiscuously below
the natural waist, natural beauty
Wasted by electricity's end

I want to take delight in your body, your ****** tongue
Quell the minor indiscretions of the day and
Give willingly to honesty
My ******* two moon over campus, your hand the sky.
If the peering leaves won't judge,
The least you can do is look me in the eye.

In my first life, I died
The year I turned 25,
And now that I’m in the hours before I ******* second,
I want to make it all the way to
28.27 years
cause when you divide that by 9,
You’re left with pi.

And because the universe isn’t just a
Straight line, you’ve got to use a formula to get around,
Get all up on that pi d because piety just
isn't logic enough for me, where  even the repentant
Are told they’re going to burn in purgatory, sweetheart, please.
Being alive and feeling was
sometimes hell enough for me.

In just a few hours before I’m sent through that
Tight tunnel,
I want to be judged by the god of
3.14159, the baker that made me
Mr. Blueberry Buddah
Master in the art of reincarnation.
I want to be birthed **** with just a dab of pure whipped
cream for a soul,
Drizzled sweet with the blood I never watched my
mother bleed for me
on the morning of my second birth.

But I gotta say, this bardo ****'s pretty odd,
Here the sky ranges in color gradients too specific like
“violent salmon” all the way to “lukewarm smoothie”
But once I get out, I know things will be strange,
owning a life that’s not quite mine to lose.
And even though I’ll have no answer to give, I desperately
Want someone to ask,

Stranger, tell me, how did it feel?

Theoretically, I’ll respond,
Well, I was kicked back into some ancestral dream
To meet everyone I will ever be, everyone
I have ever been and
Once I’ve met all of them,
Everyone I will never meet again.

And they'll ask,
Friend, is that why babies take so long to be born?

Yes, its because they’re shaking hands with the universe
On the way out of the womb.
At least, the one who will reach nirvana
After this life cycle circles through.

Lover, if I were to meet you again, will you remember?
Does your soul still have my story
Etched on it somewhere,
Or will you be washed clean of me,
The tabula rasa upon which Locke never wrote?

I won’t remember you, but
I have faith that you’ll find me,
Even lifetimes grow apart after too long.
It’s all about the company you keep because
They never stay.
And if that should happen, well,
We just met each other in an inconvenient life.

The sun sets gentle as it is painted
and painted over,
a portrait of sliding sky.
in gradients too slow for
notice the painter erase the day's melodies
brooding all the
while the sky finishes its fall
onto the rising night.

He is a quiet man, all
calloused hands, stained forearms,
more accustomed to solitude than
the daylight of scrutiny.

With the precision of an almanac,
the painter finishes, canvas cleaned
of its light and
sliding quiet beneath his blanket of tattered stars,
the man waits
in hope, that tender lunacy,
to find the lady who resides in the corners of his dreams.
He longs to touch her outside his mind's eye,
but all too soon he is asleep
and she is nowhere to be found.

His breathing evens out and
rising unconscious from the bed,
he shuffles towards the canvas.
Sitting picturesque before the easel,
he eases the woman into existence,
champagne beneath his brush.
She never stays longs, though,
leaving with the drop
of her mimosa glass,
bleeding orange onto background and body;
he rushes to catch her oils as she
drips between his fingers.
The painter sighs deep
and begins to cover his work.

Every night his heart breaks
as he paints and paints her over.

When he finally wakes,
dropping the shredded sky from his frame,
he finds the canvas inexplicably different
than how it was left.
It will be forever, it seems,
until their two shadows will be allowed to meet,
concrete as a realist's ache
for resolution.

The desk is a refreshing change of pace from the
uneasy comfort of the bed. I
eye the flimsy container of trail mix
lying in wait, my lightly salted prey.
rolling from beneath the body-like warmth of my
blanket cocoon,
I stumble towards nourishment.

I attack my snack,
and settle into the
beeswax halo of drunk hung Christmas lights,
mistakenly onto an uncapped felt pen,
tip bleeding into a beige throw
bought for a newly redecorated room.

Unnoticed, the stain spreads,
advancing on the threads of the throw.
I will, perhaps, see it tomorrow
and curse silently,
and wonder if it can be
hidden by rearrangement and ultimately
decide that a little folding will do the trick.

Outside, the snow freezes a fresh exoskeleton,
primed for crushing the footprints of strangers.

Stunned or drunk,
you went silent after
I cupped your face and said
lets **** and

you spend your nights until we meet
at the bar while

I stay here, drinking hard like
cleaning a pistol.

Philosophy is recognizing
the simple truths that
lay beside us as we fall asleep
at night

you wear your tin pan stripes
and dash casual away
with nothing better than half assed goodbye to say
a bottle of boxed wine and
a pack of cigarettes later,
the world's axis shoulder spinning like a softball player
no mittens on the floor and no songs at the door,
theres a two step left to greet the things we abhor, you
got a twisted sense of humor for a kid from nowhere
swinging off the rafters of your independence


kicking the **** from her shoes in shifts and
a last ditch effort to  give a ****

I'm high in my tower, breezes tearing through the eaves
watching the world turning,  looking so **** carefree
i got your word this will be better than it was
but your heart doesn't have the experience it thinks it does
i'll loose my tongue finally now that you've started coming around
but you don't seem that comfortable coming to my side of town
we let each other down and that will never change
i'm just glad you're back in speaking range

the shoes are by the door
now clean but still messing the pristine floor

A weathered statue stands alone behind
the house I visit in my darker hours
A disregarded sacred space, now sours
in human trash and nature's daily grind.
My eyes hang behind natural blinds
That close the portal to my powers
wasted, mostly on unworthy hours;
no mind so kind as the one unassigned.

This weathered Jesus, heart and tongue and staff
of stone, now hid beneath the springtime snow.
No rest for the weary, no spring for the rest,
I hope one day to be that holy calf,
martyred too soon by the debts that I owe,
Ill matched with life, yet still afraid of death.

90 degrees and I'm
freezing in flannel pajamas
I've got 20 more minutes of plant watering to do and
when I was a kid I had an apple corer
that did my work for
me cutting whatever part of the apple
its ill positioned teeth could sink into
I roll my saturated sleeves up wishing
I had stayed asleep at least
there I could pretend
the teenage sounds of a ska mix blaring through
wasted speakers don’t really exist
darling, have you come to pass the time with me?
you have a precious little mind.

i came around this neck of town
with a few suppositions about scotland.
Its a little admittedly a little odd willingly picking and packing  up
to sail across the sky
despite the little itch
painted on the inside of my eyelids,
brain, reminding me of people to whom I wont speak again
until they’re once again immediately in front of me.

(which means I’m kind of **** at staying in contact, even with the internet at my disposal.)
but even as technology laces the textures of communication
I constantly find myself in silence,
misplaced somewhere between the pages and the covers,
happily nestled in a place just as cozy as the beds i find myself in these days.

and when you move, there’s obviously going to be a mildly upsetting adjustment period when people ask you out for coffee and small talk.
Which is always weird, being forced through that routine when both parties know it
inevitably takes a little more than a strong cup of coffee and an exchange of pleasantries to get to know somebody.
personally, i prefer the pleasant haze of sunlit leaves
a meander through a forest, the back alleys of trees.
If you want to get to know me, take me out of society.
those coffee spoons and sugar cubes don’t mean anything to me.

when you grow to know me, you’ll see that this beauty’s only used to
sacrifice the loneliness of these panic attack blues.
black jeans, black docs, redbull and a bag of green
help me fly above this city, over the changing loyalties
the mettle of this skeleton’s made of the brittle bones of birds,
my wings are composed of their bitter words, (and that’s just fine)
(because) i’ve a tar pit where my heart is/
and it drips to fill the space that makes an artist’s hearts harden

but behind that internal la brea, I’ve been aptly middle named
because ive got a kinder ray behind
that shines for those who choose to stay.
not only for those who choose to stay, but for those who allow me in as well;
its hard to let a stranger in, should they let your secrets out,
but i’ve got a lockbox for a memory because i don’t remember a lot of things
so rest easy knowing that your words are and will be safe with me.

I know
when I go
to that the place I called
home will still show
on the mail I get
but my heart
was left behind in a haze of partial memory
and leaves I won’t again see green until a tender summer’s eve.

but until then, i have 53c murray place, the locals to my scottish life,
to keep me sane, or at least humane before the leaves have fully changed and
fallen from the trees completely.
when thats happened, i’ll have to leave.  
I’ll have to leave the grey skies and lichen foundation
and a forest full of sympathizers  and former strangers.
i remember standing on the rooftop as the breeze blew below
yelling to the people who will never think to look above the street they know.  
Roger, if heaven has a cell for me too, i’ll rent that **** as a timeshare,
so i can make a pretty profit off the constant loss of my memories and endowed indemnity.
and chrissie, you’ve been a sister to me, a parallel sort of emily
thats going to make leaving this new family
all the more difficult.
and robbie, i’m an old soul, as only you’d know.
classical music in the afternoon to soundtrack an empty flat,
at least i know you’ll follow me soon after i go back.

i remember leaving the flat for the second time, when i was sure i knew my way around,
i saw clouds fit for an easel
and a sun fit for a screen
harboring glory in every pixel.
and during that walk home,
english, french and spanish disappeared,
and i took no notice,
while i go on revising the quiet days i never intend to publish.

You cannot press the page as if you are trying to tattoo meaning onto it. People so often forget the words as supposed to do that for you, ink askew, words committing Hari Kari ***** nilly as they derail into one another, meaning unintelligible as the point of the modern day history channel programming schedule. It is a varsity track jacket for the masses, mass produced for those unable to sew it themselves or earn it through bestowed prowess. Even national bestsellers are written in pencil these days, and before their sentence is pronounced, the verdict has been erased by the side palm of our ever-loving adhd. The thinly split nib, the exposed *** crack of a wayward genius is mocked until covered, no longer ******* the stuff of sanity, and as a result the fools rule literature with a tin scepter of complacency.

Its all about half cleft clauses
These days the (most interesting)
People are mostly broken, like a
Ballerina with no toes
Or a singer with nodes
Belting crooked c’s at the
Top of a whisper
(any louder and people would hear)

They sell themselves, stories for
Cheap print and cocktail conversation
(I couldn’t imagine living through that!)
Their 15 minutes shortened to
A mere two or three
Or however long the dregs
Of a mildly disinterested mixed drink lasts

We’re drunk on self-pity
Stumbling to work
Pockets full of loose change and antidepressants
The younger child, Daughter of
Excellence but far from Perfection
We contend with our silence
Because it has become our language

the narration inside complains
drink some water, you faint now.

yes body, i know.
im doing the best i can.

still entrenched in the comforts of sleep, I roll over and
am unconscious again within seconds
but all too soon
(hour and a half, tops)
i  awake again.

Leave the blankets on the bed,
my narrator commands,
as if i have some choice.
tripping and stumbling as my vision goes
dark, falling darker with
bursts of teal to
brighten up the gloom.
I make it to the bathroom
just in time to collapse,
cradling myself with  clammy hands
while the narration,
cruel and obsequious,
sings a reminder of fragility,
when the unknown wakes me in the night, body raining sweat
and surfacing suddenly on the duvet,
stripped, I curl
around myself
water, now
the narration commands, before you slip away again,
laughing as i desperately suckle  at salvation, that
plastic portable ****.

When it is empty
the hollowed bottle bounces off the wood floor.
I am asleep before the nausea pulls me under.

one month, body, only a month more.
im doing the best i can.

The privacy of a bathroom stall and
And two roommates
A triple by any other name

so closely identifying with
the toothpaste **** in
the sink
its like a skin, you know
the grime
it keeps things warm
but the conclusion, forever missing
the ever elusive reason why
(akin to opening a door to an empty room)
is mysteriously absent

the room is empty and I can throw my head against the wall with abandon

sighing, of course
to the ever present accompaniment
of fallen beauty products on a
gross tile floor slick with intentions

the room is occupied and I lift my head from the wall with cautious precision

these walls are thin and I hear
the meaningless sounds of people going about their day
the trite sound of a dropping book
or a sweatshirt being unzipped

the room is empty again, and will be for a while,  and the poster behind my shoulder curls in protest as I shift my shoulders to think better

Breathing only in the
middle of the chest, through the heart,
(no side lungs left)
hearts push against a bone cage sunrise like
i am not worthy
we are not worthy

with a reconciliation of
cheap water wine and a two cent vocabulary
the world finds its place
behind the cloudy cancer of mortality, singing
prosperity,
prosperity.

and each letter recognizes its purpose
the consonants cut the vowels short before
the overgrowth trips the text.
"They are not like me" they say
hesitantly, one of us?
one of us.

Night finally came down over town and
serenity hit like a scientist.
brilliant
like the man wiping crumbs from
his passenger seat at
a red light.

but the scene isnt what it wants to be,
something mutated between fish and primate
and now the strain's a little wonky

oh the absurdities of a train life!
two poncho clad players on the playas del mexico
he said "i dont
want no flat *** jeans,
i got a donk"
and the book replied
"i would rather lie with words
than people because
words cannot lie to you"

this silly dope fiend's fever dreams
scream lines like
the density of head is not enough
to contain the difference in integrity!

There should be a genre of poetry called waste verse
tasteless and terse like the khaki pine needles that
litter the space underneath your porch.
a neglected place,
where the broken blue bottles and dew
marry in early morning ,
attended by a congregation of woodchips,
beers cans and
guinea pig ****
dancing easy with the morning breeze,
and carried like the currency of an early dreamer's reverie,
morning.

morning.

morning is gluing a teacup together knowing
that it will be broken tomorrow.
and day by day, the absence in form will grow
until that once teacup becomes nothing but empty space, with
its base designated in place of the back porch ash tray.
when i turned back one day, there was nothing left of its body
nothing left of it that i could see but paint dust, a couple of cuts
and some blood covered by a bandaid that doesn't stay on
because feet sweat a little too much.

morning is repetition for comfort
but breaking routine is
starting to feel more appealing
than keeping it,
because I know one morning I will wake alone,
with a rusted infrastructure and fractured backbone,
and have to look upon a screen with thousand texts that read,
"there are other fish in the sea"
well, *******, maybe he was my sea.
i mean,
he is my sea,
maybe.

there is a genre of waste verse called poetry,
and the simple syllogism of it all
leaves me reeling.
but after i finish my cigarette over the khaki pine needles
beneath your porch and go inside,
"good morning", i say.
"good morning", he said.
i cannot remember what was so important just a few moments ago.

morning.

Woman,
why are you bound by beauty?

melt the silver off your wrists
your ears your fingers
and fix your intelligence around your neck
not as an adornment
but as a symbol of your independence

I went to find your place in the woods today
but as I rounded the bench near the
fray of trees I couldn’t find the fallen log
where we sat for so long that i became the cold lichen too,
colored like an overexposed photo
pale and unmoving, drawn to and
at the mercy of the elements. I  was overexposed as well,
not just because i chose to wear only a sweater in the
waning days of autumn but
because I drew out these spider silk memories for you
to see, me, as only my sheets and bathroom floor see.  

Part of me expected to find you among the trees,
looking for a new mossy place to
watch the walkers and the swans from,
thinking as you smoke away thoughts of
a current past given up fast to the ether.
before the sun sets, you’ll be with those memories,
lost to the ever presence of an unrelenting time.
I suppose the cold will keep you inside for a while
until the womb of your flat can keep you no longer,
and drives you out, back into your space in nature.
and when you find it,
you’ll see your fallen perch has finally hit the ground.

I found my own perch, looking for yours
and watched the smallest of birds hop
between the edges where the water meets the damp land and
I suppose one day you’ll again sit among the faded leaves
watching as your smoke, breath and body heat make
fleeting picture clouds for you to read.

so I rest here with a sachet of tobacco, some rolling papers and
tumbling thoughts to ease the strain.
and while i sit supposing, you suffer in barbarous silence.
But the one thing I’ve learned from being force fed
everyone else''s woes and crumbling glories:
its hard to sew a wound
under seven layers of skin.