the tar -
the tip., slides in as the fingernails grow slowly outwards from the body
sun hits the vinyl siding of the houses across the street
raking sharp light across them like cliff faces in famous photographs
whose colors were only seen by ansel adams himself
chevron patterned blankets are folded over themselves in rosaceous limp hillsides

window . split

And me,the

supermarket endcap : ingredients for smores reminds of summervacation and being in thecottage and going to the store late for snacks, and the phone call that comes aboutthe dead friend

If ignorance is bliss,
Then omnipotence must be agony.

But the more I know about you,
The less, I can breathe .


I yet breathe

you say to me that the stars
are out
tonight .
after years of
hiding

i watch and am
blinded by pure
glow

pin me to the wyrd of your world .
[and i, you]
doom.doom.dawn.

a yawning, gullet-bound
tug


and
under the leaf-litter and each sedimentary band of
a rolling thing

resides a
muscle memory
wound up like
(a)

spring

what do you hear Chavala.
laying hear in the morning, sick.
you find reason to peak up and think
sounds have stirred you and i.
where as before we had slumbered

her voice is war
and i am the feet sweating in heavy combat boots
the cardoor slams outside the window
they leave without us

there are things in this room that can **** nations of artists

sunday's midnight is driving_      
a  n  d    the trees are a wall of dark monsters, hemming us in.the
 road
wants to funnel forward. we will let it.    the
morning will wake early with us- even as dark as now .
there is a task wanting doers tonight.
a brother must be delivered        (         )   .
celebrations must be forgotten

God is an urban legend
More dangerous than a creepy pasta in the news

And youth is less corruptible than nations.
And the stories
The normies
tell each other are comfort and exclusion of fault and responsibility .
Sensation spreading
I play with my ribs
Thumb side pressed below shoulderblades
and skipping in and
Out
Of grooves

I move
Towards you
And in for the
****


If
******* can hurt it
Then do it.

Barcode sticker on the shower wall wet and dripping ink like one handle hairy bandaid from a leg

Summer t-t-time and livin’ ...
Small change
////////////////////////

Congealed words stick to the roof of  (my) mouth like peanut butter at the beach.
  My jar lid rolls away across the kitchen floor and towards you.

My toweled legs stretch out like vines climbing saplings,and feeling out for a new way to go once they reach the top.

Searching


Sun drying clothes on the line and leaving them out all night to gather insects.

Making plans and breaking them.

Dragging

the living room floor on top of sleeping bags

the whites of her eyes are old masking tape.
the rest of the world is likewise

my
teeth     are grinding like wet bark on the
  car door.
leaving behind
paint          to mark off where we've
been.
and to show, in a more general sense, that we existed
     at      all

i see her dying   along with the others

yet
her lips are shining like rug-burn

and
there is something left to be extracted


we imagine my head against her *******
the new milk ruining her blouse for the evening

marbled agaisnt the grey sky

There will always be days where you are swimming in it. The air presses up against the undercooked  pancake of your ear with a pressure greater than air. Any of that ugly light that gets to your eyes is suspended in it
Like moths in cobwebs, and just as
happy
about it.

All aggressors think themselves, the
Victim.


We battle now for the center of the human
Heart

We find ourselves lost
At first,
Beside the newly widened
Outer
Walls

Theseus ,
Theseus .

But the Monster always arrives
Here
First.

my name is shaking behind your bottom teeth. the cut of your lip drags it in and out slowly, drying along side it.
it's                                                alright                         though☆
                        ­            everybody
just wants to be massively popular

pulling hair out of parted lips like charming serpents from
        wet reeds
  open. <laying>
hernecktwistsdown

and stains me       
         .
our hands
are

dropped bread_dog-natured
and slow.breath
i am dull hammerhead  to your
nail-edge.
i am smoothed out by time and
b l o w s.
the sea knows my
stone(s).like i know your wrist
though i fray at the end of
your
twine-lined teeth:

you have the personality of a typical youtube comment.
suicide
is going up

here,

this is the last Art
history forgets us.
as
years pass the word will be brought up from time to
time
but there will be no understanding of it

it's the kind of self-loathing that just radiates
it's like what i imagine leaving a spoon in the microwave would be like.
it's like wearing a sweater in spring- when the day turns out a lot nicer than originally forecast
and i am just left sweating and fuzzy

Nothing more to addd

hair in faCe-

lids, part covered over like gauze on a wound

as your zipper eyes are caught in my [ shirt]
3/4s of the way down

a metallic taste
like ******* on a cashier's finger-[tips]

the sandpaper strips at the edge of each stair
as  your head tilts . like
a broken PA speaker on a subway car
pushing static like a jazz drummer

art blakey and the
hiss.

superrich .  call they say,
                      savory as
sputnik sounds through hamradios
in every other basement
in a time [and place]where things are still
in bed

fills a void in you_
like the mist of dawn settling into
the untreated
wound of last night’s
moral dilemma.
the tendril fingers
of something older
than
domestic man.
it’s
war-moon waxing
like

a faltering empire /
like
an island
  amidst the heaving breaths.of a
dark ocean

everytime you blink the river bank drowns another inch.
your shoe is gone
and it's coming for the rest of us.

it is happy with itself _

the wifi is out and we are being ****** away

(when i was young)
she would take a pair of rolled up socks from my parents' room and
bring them around with her, in her mouth.
in the dead of night- or when she thought no-one was home,

she'd set them down on the bathroom floor and meow long, sad calls
(out)into the stillness

[i wondered if she remembered her mother.]

before i was born, my uncle found a kitten outside, meowing.
as i grew, i learned more from her than anyone.

(i am now older than she ever was,
which had seemed impossible at the time.    she had always seemed
infinite.)

feel feel think
feel feel bite

_
the
      dogs roam around in the yard
(still)looking for you

they find nothing but eachother
                               and thats how.




the house plants are drying
                       or stay too wet


there's never any middle ground (with them).


you cease to be
today


like drying vowels out in my mouth before speaking.

++
like waking up with the window left open.

each wink you left behind
     tilts back to let light and air into the

throat.

the shape of a moment
your geometry in bloom



the Real Thing
is finding out

is being what
happens


is Here .

"i know that smell"
he said
"those tweety-bird treats from the ice-cream truck-
with those weird gumball eyes
i haven't thought about those since my little-league days
i always ******.

i was young for my grade and very thin and gangly-
i ****** except for that one year, when everyoneelse moved on and

me and that one other kid who was also young for our grade
stayed in the league.
we killed it that year
i'm not proud. but it was our chance to shine

it's amazing how these things can come back to you."

i said yeah

a bit later on my way to the train station, there was a homeless
woman
with oxygen tubes and a wheelchair
just slumped back in that chair. supine. directly in front of the door to the stairs
eyes closed
baking in the (late day) sun

i didn't check to see if she was alive.
i though about it though

a fat clump of hair jabs at the left eye with the sharp wet tip of the curl as the head slides backwards and the neck, to the side

i am the doe-eyed and
mop-hung. dripping dry in forests of dull pilgrims
the shirt rubs on the belly,
damaging the pale skin-scape for the 1/2 hour session.
we need the vigilance now
look away and i

grey-same to glass

you,
dulcet lung.
photo-smooth
laying down, pine-black
in my fluffy gun sights

i want to skin the wilderness off the rasp in your voice

our legs are good.
but we are going nowhere.


the curve of your forehead is sloping away from us,
the ugly gems of sweat are suiciding off of it_
and
the sun is beating down.

through a carpet of skintight stares : shoes untied and slipping.
combing though it all
cowboyly

it's time to go home,
she says.




*ok,

my mind is an  a c c i d e n t

dna is disgusting.
my tasks are the  hand-me-downs of killers
the living are bandits for the lives of others_
i antiquate myself, stepping out into the dying light of moral argument.
we obsolesce against the lampshade of its horizon
nature is meant to be broken
and we are the breakers [as usual].


i am i
and you are youless.
springtime is stepping down

oh ryoko,
where did you go

novelty is a messy buisness

/.                    /.                    /.    
Beside the comb-prong fingers ,
Bristle-skinned searchparty ,
Moon mounted
Pillow rider

True face
Throne

Horn-headed for
Elk meat, where it seeks
Home

for
when it counts :

a
boy with one palm pressed up against the corner of each pew
kicking up into the
air,
flying for a fraction of a second _
looking down the aisle
and worrying
that he won’t know what to do with his hands when he gets to the
end

a
world made out of
itself ,
alone .

you have that look in your eyes like the heat death of the universe
i can see it building out into an absolute
springtime.
i may not be able to understand
but i will see that look in your eyes
and know its like leaving home for good

Forever yester-ling, we will not
Bathe above the sea -
Nor where the light spreads its long fingers in first inquiry of future mornings

The mountain’s root
Will be hollowed out before
We are found

And we shall drown in still tomorrows
Before
News of us comes


Silent, somewhere
Between the front facing earth
And the
Peridot      stew.

he, white slice of fingernail
he, like  splinters

the way the light reaches

the free jazz of other peoples' suns colliding out there-
freezing against
                         my low cheeked
                         face

standing cold and dumb in
      december's hairline    _
(the )moon, as thin as skin   .
and i, thinner

decorating the tree
with
chemo fingernails(green) like
                                        fair.ies

circling around- laying[like the]
laurels on our heads. trashcan lids:
padding our ears like boxing gloves
love to tap the side of your.trialware
breathing.  my .     looks,brittle as hard
candiesshattering in our unleveled
jaw.lines hoops of you puff over myhome// chimney
tongue/ / . past unshoveled driveways
grassgrown and mowed down

months ago.

its going to be

(cleanlike lungs filling)
good as garden decorations
free as pulling quills from dogs' noses

      [untucking pictures from a shoebox in the closet when you're gone]

Your name is a desert flower
Handed out to me
In the readying dusk.
The canyon walls
Pass a soft light back and forth like Rumors  

Nourishing  no lost soldiers in this valley .

In breaking several fat leaves from the stalk,
I expose cross-sections tapped for undrinkable  fluids


It is spoken again.
And justly.

My wool sleeves push dry against the earth.
Padding me.

The smoothed edges peel back for flesh
The torn finger hangs from the skin like dumbed ornament
Wagging falsely
Unwilling to begin the slow decay now promised .


Give me time.
Time.
I will ferment a new thing to drink you
And be domesticated [ by the sea ]

Animal skull mouth
Bride to loneliness
Upon cliff top watch
I return to you

From the sea
From the sea

From me, I see
I see.

If you brew the perfect cup of tea each time
By taking the exact temperature of the water,
And measuring out the powder,
It ceases to be perfect.
It ceases to be anything at all.

i met the aging father of an ex-friend in a park.
he had a large bicycle with him

they were always riding bicycles, the whole family.
healthy living. watching less tv. reading more books. doing sports.
he was sitting on a bench
i had recognized him- and in spirit of better days and holding no
illwill,i approached .
we got to talking
and it got to why his son and i had drifted apart all those years ago
i don't think he ever knew the whole story.
i replied with nothing too specific
but later thought about it more .
i decided that
he got tired of the loser's table and i was still content for a bit longer
and yet, to this day, i have never thrown someone’s fish out the bus

window .

don't worry.i can guarantee
that if they where handing out participation trophies
  to humanity

you wouldn't get one

+




its
convenient. the way you stare back
+

i hold harnesses tied from knots of your clothing   . my
fingers are hemp
strands and
you              are weaving more

chordate . wet

dancing, evermingled with
[his enzymes]
you
swept ,,


you let me  past the corners of your hair.

odds are you getting these images they out so out so ready for bedbug burning scrubby shyness scruff of the same afterwardly word.  dismissingderby. they've regressed into serpentine shying. away . thumb shock.  don't shut up.  don't think.  don't front this.
I'm just now leaving the nursing home soon.

i am synthesized under a microscope
like being shot through by many arrows
slowly-
slidedark around the corners of the glass.
i twist and roll .      belly over
ribs
as her eyes, chalky, talk to me.
i take it
toothily
soil-minded, both.
heads with weapons.

gritty gums is love+
dim viewfinder is love+

dust in the screen-shine
and shoes under the table

[my] cheeks are drying out
each time they are swabbed.

[i could be i n the world
i could be in this world]

the watchband is tightening. as the arms
are . swelling
as the sea is rising
rinsing salt [and other semi-conductors]
around in my mouth
caking crystals deeply into pores and
dimples

like thefloodlights         coming     o  n
to **** with the lives of bats
and bugs .     both

sake in the kitchen.
peace and control  .  
   my body decomposing over a slice of bread

learning to see people as objects
pinching together the corners of pages.with nails that need to be
trimmed

scrolling through  screen
girls skinny in their dresses

folding down
with
[waists that are really waisting]

knees and knuckles
pink w/ youth and .   hurt
and isnt it good to know we can
still scrape something [good]

like bangs across our eyes. like pockets
being played with instead of
looking forward- face front
my eyes, lunge around- across
rays of dust._dead sharp floaters
in a sea of stuffy air

let me learn you like legs
(i notice) under my                         sweatshirt.
                                    pine green

he opens the chewable tylenol capsules like carefully peeling away the skin of a ripe fruit.
legs crossed at the kitchen table,
[buying time ]
_she stands at the sink. not doing dishes
but rearranging them.

the radiator is hot and hisses
the oil is delivered today

the mail is sorted roughly

The white fan stands on the kitchen floor pointed out the window.
Cleaning chemicals hang like
Jungle.
I have no garden.
Mail is delivered to the wrong address.
I pick at the same zit under the skin until a scab forms above my left
eyebrow

I could be growing tomatoes right now, but I’m not.
The yard faces the wrong way.

I’ve had no time to buy planters.
Work has been rough.

The dog is on edge today.
She is still a puppy.
We speculate that she may go into her first heat (soon.)

the instant she opened the front door   .   it hit me.
i was about to blurt out the usual, dont let Chava out
i swallowed the words
Chava was behind me in the car that had just began to pull away.
inside, there was no cat.

later i found myself, conscious of my own lap in a way that knew it was empty.

[the corners of my eyes deceive me around the passing of each threshold ]

sparks fly off the 3rd rail   .like
winking at the mole-men
          you tighten your belt and      lean a pink ear
on the wall

august comes and goes
in a hop-along head

clock-breath .heaving like the         earth
and dust in sunlight
\

the falling
is all too
easy

the sphere of the electron cloud
steps down

into

release .


this will fit into the corner of the basket of my words ,
but is not exhaustive
of

work