My being is in
constant reproach
stuck
like an
invisible threat
implicit everywhere

nebulae
composed of dust
particles of presence
lines that are forbidden
a park breathes
after midnight
& invisible gods
send children spinning
into spontaneous
joy-games

To reveal a face
Is to disrupt
The gentle slow roll barrage
To show a concealed instant
The mask dies away
In old growth misery decay
When hair & belly
Like a costume folding
United with unknown cause
Who has invented
The receding plaster
Mindful eyes
Wet portraiture
Individualized
Self-conscious stranger
You are  a repetition
And a contradiction
Cells bloom like
Palm patterns
Maps limited in form
Without whatever
Mimics Henrietta
To intrusions
Conscientious tales
Who told from
Up on great heights
No reason to imagine
A resistance
Painful recreation
Sell me your blind light
I call you out of mine

take away
all you hold dear
show it to me
see me clear
obvious preoccupations
known
waiting to be
grown & known
ahead but not caught up
slowly we put on the mask
reveal & never show again
our faces grow to fill the form
insanity becomes the norm
the story goes on
just to break it down
don't they care about
the easy way?
your survival
is a color
without a name
we create
a truth
that we
forget
felt like
it was always
that way

he didn't understand
the technology
he had nothing
in his head
the night was
draped in fog
there was a
neon sign
it felt like
a dream

sweet death
I feel you there
foreboding yet hidden
in the shuddering corner of the bleak room
peaceful, ominous presence reaching-
your black and white spiraling hands
desperately recalling flesh-memories

I searched the edges of that room's horizon
frantically calm to beckon you
within the broken clock
suspending yourself within it's crooked hands
assuring me of nothing; I thanked you

sinews melting
in a viscous pool
of pure grain alcohol
Moroccan children
dance around the
fetid, stinking puddle
some dip their toes
& are swallowed up
forever
others *******
mingling their essence
with the swirling murk

Awash in the light
of that widening hall
where strange passing calls
the movements of no fortune
found in languid speech

all is flux

And yet the mad logic shines
as if it were constructed
by some ancient cosmic hand

No returns to naivety

No descent for the timeless

All is wrapped in golden bows
deserving of no answer
& calling none in turn

Thy name be air
thy face be sky
I reach to apprehend the unfathomable
content simply to have vague ideas of you
Indeed, in the world of mirrors
trick and illusion are the mothers' arms

To be free, to let go to heavenly air
relinquishing all thought to be known
in this way,
we are reborn to truth

She’s dancing incognito
Beneath a vaulted space
With arms spun into circles
Pulling light across her face

Blue beer can on the highway
Like a sapphire in the sun
No motion
Where it’s resting
Machines roaring
Caught in endless transit
Ferried to the ends
Of city blocks where
Torn-up asphalt
Burst out of
The cobblestone dream
Return back into dust
Call up some
Urgent memories
Some fact forgotten
Some tired plan undone
Recast in pebbles

Give me room
Bring me forward
I require all of you & none of myself
Your letters disappeared
Somehow vanished
Just as love may vanish over years
pushed off among the faithful
squandered at my folly
How I long to know you
truly & unimagined
As you are
For yourself and not for me
though
sculpted by my love
Please remain
As I try to change

The grass turns the hours - endless
Eyes though deceitful, lend us
The courage to find beauty in anything
Or in bending shades of light

Walking in a state of transformation
Metamorphosis in the perpetual death & rebirth cycle
-every moment dying and a new birth springing from the grave of holding
Retention of the dead self
This breath, this moment, gone as it is marked
The thought born, the even long past as if it never was
If not for phantom memories surrounding
-ghostly, striding straight through me

Nights and days and inward sunlit rooms
strange drugs and waking dreams
boundaries dissolve and burial mound moans
stomach knots unsure of what
whatever rises unknown & uncontrollable
out of nothing, everything
the everlasting, ever-loving mystery of all
the laughing hard-on
the eternal throbbing pulse of form
the formless energy made visible
mad for something; anything
an indication of reality, touch, grass
now fearful apprehension
now dreadful uncertainties
though all is uncertainly seen in light
a mirror image of itself
a lonely inching tendril
full of blind life
unknowable & unknowing
crouched w/ a sullen, risen fist
a hermit content to rule a room
w/ no designs upon anything
wishing only for solitude & asylum of the mind
weary from amazement & blind fear of endless mysterium
the lunatic lottery man approaches
full of glee for the luck I bring him
his fingers ***** from scratching endlessly
rosary sadly dangles
crisp bills & nothing really to say
please win it, please lose it
win it lose it win it lose it
are you a holy man? A religious man?
is your god a hallucination?
are you God Himself?
imposed upon a hard-tiled world?
Grandma died staring at a clock
time mocks the dying
& I waste the day with precious *******
habit boiled pure addiction
wonder why confused or sad
never working for real life pulse
pathetic in my chimp grunt
made a real mess didnee?
ooh wy? ooh wy? ooo wy?
now the regrettable loathing
with bright glimmer
now the sad carnival
all my heroes are angels
& all my angels have died
where has that illusive smirk gone?
the final blossom nothing

these words are filling my head as mere stepping stones
as religion or fiction--where was it written?
veiled in an enigma, locked inside a riddle?
the origin is a bright sun
against which

all is revealed
all is broken
all is redeemed

fallen angel
risen demon

existential monster roaming


told as a story

the looming conflict of history

biological arrangement of supreme intricacy

all a representation of another; a metaphor

takeaway flills

in the same way that the dude is the lower dimensional description of the man

nobody speaks here or ends badly

whyn't we suggest a better one?

it is more easy, more long

Whenever the Hunger ceases
I shall be dead
I shall want for nothing
We cannot see the end yet
Today is just a featureless poison
What meat from in the vegetable kingdom?
What pause have the sailors given you?
How many heartbreaks must we endure?
That place every man knows
Hints at transformation
The moment we can't speak about
Words just don't touch it
What did you see this ordinary day?
Aren't people all the same?
What do you think?
Can you pinpoint my mercy?
Or tell a real smile?
From beneath dim lights
Where's your humanity? Encased in leather?
Do you rule your world?
What do flowers look like?
Are you afraid to say brother?
We can forgive each other right now
Right in this moment
Oh but you're afraid to say brother
Or maybe you don't know how
The man on the corner is as suspicious of us as we are of him
Isn't it all too familiar?
What's he really asking for?
How much does your humanity cost you?

Children speak like poets
living in a mad, visionary world

thus, by nature,
we are all lunatics

when childish insanity comes full circle

let us proceed into vast wilderness

our compasses lost in the sun
-our minds drowned in the sea

Worry not to reach
for there is nothing there to touch

and the night lends but one favor
in weaving the racing mystery

words will do no justice,
evoke no truths

throwing off the veil of shade
I speak in silent gaze

Wine bottles in my backpack and I am all alone
Isolated from the ones I'd love to see
Avoiding who I'd like to be

Is he being serious?

I can't tell

Am I being serious?

I'm not sure

feeling on the brink of something

am I dying?

is this what it's like to die?

I had a lot of good words to say

they were going to come out like a sickly ball of ectoplasm

like a desperate clawing scream up from the floor

but now I don't know what they were

everything I consume is somehow related to who I am as a person

I've spent a lifetime

modeling myself after words, images, phrases, sounds

they are like little helpers

but they are not me

"don't be afraid to care"

"what did you see while you were there?"

I am bursting with joy

I want to laugh, dance, be free to love

my love is all ******* right now

it's all I know

the moon & sky so beautiful this strange winter

deadly sunsets and snow

crystalline space and stars

"how does it feeeeel?"

he asks & rolls over drunk, uncaring

I slipped her something mid-conversation

what was it?: a hint, a look, an eye?

I don't even know really

Was I being myself or not?

"the joke is come upon me"

at last, the irony is concrete

hilariously, beautifully tragic

& yet not at all; more like a lighthearted pun

"we all shine on, like the moon & the stars & the sun"

why & how did it become so difficult?

this is the struggle of every man

this is not my father's insanity, nor his father's

Coming upon the supposed realism of the place
in all it's artificial glory - shining like polished plastic

Where in the glass cage; them without eyes sit, motionless
& tapping on the base of the spine - handing judgment
shouting their mad disease into the air

In the contamination of the surrounding, nameless faces
barking out for what they think they need

They scream for food, food, food!

Food and the televised delivery of words
the milky film of burned retinas
staring out as if it see anything shining with the famous names
& the electric screens all around, reinforcing their stride

& fatten them with words

Mothers, fathers and children - all young
misplaced and arguing painfully
about who is where - how they are - & acting

No relief from the bombardment
& stark reality of those people
glossing over magazine covers - top row - never bottom
& system of image delivery

Serving only in the false world
where all is hideously pretty & cold