You say my name the way a bullet pronounces syllables in other people's mouths-passing through them on the way to profound exit into the air.
My
thoughts turn to you in the same afterwardly accompanying mess,knowing  
what has been
done.

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]

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
\

i would be okay if you stained my teeth
with anything
you
had
to offer

horse-whole in the water-
milky for you-
white as cuticles.

like the /**** me/ hum of the A/V cart
hooked up and left running
nothing.
stuffy
in the boxed we built (there)

i can't.
when trimming the calico hairs on skinly jaw.
like trip-hop leaching out of your pearly *******:
like magic-jesus.
with porcelain around her
animal seeds.
where i can find:
the swirling of Listerine flushing down the side of your throat.
like swabbing for cells from the floor of your tongue

like swapping girls.
or
(like) picnicking       deep inside
flower-bait.blue
trilling Gatorade apology/  
simulating love.

and even now. inside the folds of dead house plants  
i would be okay if you stained my teeth
with anything
you
had
to offer.
horse-whole in the water-
milky for you-
white as cuticles.

like the /**** me/ hum of the A/V cart
hooked up and left running:
nothing.
stuffy
in the boxed we built

i am more perfect than camouflage
like pipilotti rist screaming her lungs to pale ribbons.
as kimono as Kiki was real
she- as brave as anything

i found it out.
as fragrant as
the deepest rooted thing-
blissfull as the afternoon.
as
red
as good cadmium.
and that is ******* red

we skitter mouse-long into clanking radiator breaths,
tongue// wrapt around those teeth
                                    like the wet sweater sleeves heavy at your side.
sinking into  auditorium :  my warm blanket full of eyes,
the floorboards chewing on our soles.(as) i scuff your mute fingers
against my cathedral face  
"home" is quaking like stones w/o oceans,
cereal boxes with no prize inside,
like a sudden impulse to buzz your head
.
we cough up a wish, like a cat's superstition:
proto - prayer :
a mammal recognizing its own thoughts as a distinct
operation,
i correct the errors in your dividing cells like [tearing japanese paper.]
ourreligion is the opposite of problem solving.we disprove
ourselves/in order to   grow.
[and stagnate on faith alone]

i'd rather worship myself for knowing i could

we give thanks : for the grip that tears you away from my
handhold

no one will notice
but at the restaurant
pressure treated wood stuffed under her sweatshirt
her frame soaked up into my ribs
pushed together hard
like the bones in our hips against the seat
to feel her guttural pulse.
in the space we share-
dive into the slow-burn stove in her voice
a flashlight passing through the red edges between your fingers with your hand held against it.
catalytic cells in tiny metal boxes breathing on the back of you neck.
nothing left between us but our elbows on the polyurethane-killed table
nothing happens.

we imagine splashing our faces with cold water in claustrophobic places- under pressure- pushing down into submarine voyages-

we take our time-

we open up our faces to the sleepless weeks, lying on the floor to stretch our legs

there is want of words between us,
but languages can't do enough to satisfy us
and looks can only hold us for so long.

and the contents of my head is old refrigerator meat-
leftovers found in the back after too long

[she doesn't  see.]

as the dog grows big enough to steal the kitchen sponge right out of the sink,
as my arms grow thinner,
as the kimchi jar breaks against the inside of the trash
as the a/c sits tilted and dripping from the window onto the front lawn,

<a̶s̶> people are forgotten.
<strike> as <strike> mouths become softer.
<strike> as <strike> patches fill in.
a̶s̶

tin cup flowers
and cars slurring by
a broken man touch the earth,
sad bandana wrapt around his hand,
God gives him road.
the dirt believes in what his hand reminds
i feel the moon,
and taste the sky.
you're wind in the washboard,
swallows dipped in silver and *** sweep in and out of-
sparrows sparkling and-
kicking stones to the side.
******* pockets.
i fell off the whole universe   just for a moment.

no apologies

Like intertwined serpentine vertebrae : in quiet respite after swallowing the largest part of the world,
The limbs hang
From
The
White calcified
Remains

Of the
City.

A phantom of
All.



A cocked
Gun.

A careless
Bed.


The

Discarded
Cathedral ephemera
Within
Us
Now.




The end.of a
Long
Song.

there's sentient life in the bottom of your glass
you **** civilizations with [the swipe of] a sponge and look up as if nothing at all.

placing the demise of new taxonomic kingdoms onto the counter, you turn to me and repeat the question:

The truth.
Fight injustice.

Stand up for what you truly believe in - no matter how big, or how small

Let’s try it again, but mean it this time.




                  don’t let the bad guys win…

feel feel think
feel feel bite

i saw the greater part of creation succumb to the piracy of numbness-
the nimbus rage of torpedo cigars blowing blue-grey smoke into the dark lashes of love-struck little *****-
thirsty angels with tangled curls of hair bashing their heads against bathroom walls
screaming under their breath,  not enough.
i saw the green plastic- and her orange eyes
and the soap-bubbles on the sidewalk
and the soap frothing all over the sidewalk
and the glass that took off like pristine bullets in every direction
and-
blood running over the ***-covered lip of the curb, flowing into the street-
down to the drain, dripping into the hungry orifices of the big metal grate
into sewer pipe salvation-
destination unhindered by your humanity.
god, this must be insanity
and not even the good kind.
but
let's go watch the fire-works up on the roof-
crawl out the attic window
i let you go first to watch the electric calico
trickle down your legs like a promise.
i like the birds that fly in and out of your hair-
the handkerchief at your hip,
i like the crazy and the cool-
the too cute for comfort
and the fake angsty danger of your darkside.
like morphine-
the band or the drug?
you're ironically detached
with your semi-satanic languidity-
and overdue serenity
[i got a few overdue books at the library.]
[they closed the library a long time ago.]
i like to play catch with your presence-
our eyes with the back-and-forth,
the half-sent glances when we think the other isn't looking.
but we were always looking-
or at least i was always looking at you.
i could see half inside of you.
you were always half-naked-
in the scanty rags of the latest fashion.
when you breathed it was like nectarine noises-
and muffled yelps of love.
i watched your shirt move up and down on your chest
and told you about "never knows best"
it seems
i've seen the greater part of creation succumb to the supreme softness
and the best laid plans of motorcycles and mini-vans fall to pieces in my palms.
and you were the greatest creation i saw on the roof that day.
don't bat another pretty little eyelash at those tiny flashing pieces that go past like ricochets
it's just one more night of strangeness
and then you can be free again.

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

Heads adorned in plastic thorns
Teeter
Side-long across the neighbor’s dead
Lawn//:tongue-******* the anthill
Orifices.busy little workers for a
Long-dead god.


It’s an arms race out here
It’s race wars in their
Char broiled
Minds

It’s kindness, broken evermore .
Ring around the rosy-faced, ****-eating grins//:We all fall
Down.

That that they may become intelligent

whereas bronze will evoke more of girls on the beach than the perfect luster of a Chinese horse in the museum hallway near the back of the wing.

passive perception points out a small
visitor
just below the ***** window sill
as
dishes on the edge of biology are slogged through
the
[wet]
cerebrospinal tendrils  cling to the thin line of wall behind the pockmarked metal faucet
like
far-flung dendrite fingers cling to passing notions : such as a soft-focused background sensation of the clouds moving by you in the sky beyond the confines of this room.

dark opaque eyes
first two, at the end of each antennae like the body-plan of a Cambrian killer
then four more present from the amorphous body
bulging out like dive bladders filling up with ambience
tracking you like leaves do to the sun much slower
thin
not-bug appendages get too long to be normal
then even longer
it is reaching for you in the camp kitchen as
  y o u
back up to the light honeycomb
  door

he said closing his eyes,
         i feel like a tree clutching the rocks on some high place,
        weary of wind and winter
        and grey of wood.
        my tired fingers in the tired ground.
        heavy of lid and brow,
        remembering too many passings and partings in the dim of
        mornings.  
        and you will think if foolish but for the shrubbery fading
        and the bees not returning in the summer

and when i'm overconfident,      i give away things that i shouldn't
i will miss them someday when i'm in bed-
the nails still growing
no mater how short they get cut. keep cutting
them shorter and shorter

looking down at it.
hallway-stairling 
bleating,
unsated.
perambulating this



/

ea dark hair        rests
like mud thrown against the  pale skin   .ribs are counted down the
back as
i trace the spine to its source
shoulders, cloven          into the
bilateral symmetry
               of that line [like any high eukaryote]

sides like tar, stained with wet curls
wrapped around and stikking tight like
the                          tentacles
of something
deeper                   reaching .

our bullet comes
propelled by the vengeful prayers of
innumerable
multitudes of living creatures contingent in
staying that way at great cost to us.
after all

might is right.

and
you
hold my head in your
arms

without fear     or a capacity to engage in complex love.
all emotions are to you,

like butter
on your

tongue



Evolution favors those that can't understand it

lovemelike i looked the other way
i need this like i need family in nursing
homes.
out of season decorations on
the door.
thoughts about all the different
washingmachines i've used in my life
.
we could be comfortable again
sitting at the kitchen table.you could look at me while i eat

love me like the drawer where we put all of the refrigerator magnets when we got a new one.

get exited about little things.

i wear your name on my feet like a badge
of blisters
parts that peel sigh ballads of your heartbeat,
begging more steps to be taken in search of it,
haunting each heelfall with unheeded lessons about proper footwear.

my chain of milk jug lids stretches out across the parking lot-
wishing to find yours

putting colors together for fun    and   sanity

so,

i saw a piece of you
the other day.
i found you out in the yard.

and. i used to find you
                everyday,
but,

we are the inside of a silverware drawer when the lights go out.
We are an old can of soda
we are the underside of a frying pan.the hinges of medicine cabinet mirror.the back of a fake hand gun

a pocketfull of chemical hand warmers

The washing label on shrunken, favorite, sweatshirt-
storeboughtstarmarketpumpkinpie.
Brooding at the breakfast table.
a telephone that rings when you don’t want it to.
we are nylon down vest- reversible-  tucked inbetween
arm and
oilskin hat.
We are dead houseplants.

homemade radiator covers,
feet under the covers
we are  waking up
we are slacking off in class.hating other people.wading into bathtubwater. I. hurt her daughter

polished like a powderhorn.hurting like a can of vegetarian baked beans.
like an old pocketknife.

we are
pantsless in the hallway. we are backyard garden. we are tripping over the recyclables on a sunday.    
we are good radio song.
we wanted garlic.butter we got hotdogs instead.
That’s supermarket poetry. It hit us.
golden and radiant-
as the smiles in the   cereal aisle.
And it was cold outside.

the milk froze in the car

.
.

they sent me an empty bag instead of the prayer beads i'd
ordered. and amidst my orange lightbulbs and safety glasses, and package-related things, i found the plastic envelope. wherein lay nothing but the label. and a split down the side to tell me what might have been in there once. i gave $20 to a homeless man on the red line because they say it went as low as -8 that night and much worse with the wind.he looked like family, and i was standing up. (on my way to you)but our feet, together in bed- touching through my socks
are like seed packets-dry envelopes that sit around on bureaus. after the garden is trampled with ice-inhospitable even to those **** rabbits whose tracks still pass that way.you say: you will plant them again next year.come spring. come the thawing of the ground. come, a different sort of loveliness. and
i just wanted that necklace because i liked the look of it-
the
yellow string against the unfucked-with
wood.

and that is an aesthetic worth crying over.

you need to fight

have little things
that you move around

i can’t stress enough,
the importance of s t r etching

Can your mind conceive of it
Can your heart yearn for it
Can your hands make it
Real.

her heart bursts open as it beats,
for one last act of pointless percussion,
she cries,      "you are part of my perfect prison."
this tender poison;
an anesthetic apathy,
I am here, don't you see me?
*******, I'm alive!

I am.
growing.

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.)

empty space
doesn't really mater
unless there is nothing
where something used to be

Speak truth
Seek knowledge and use it justly

i crawl on my belly against the grain of your breath.fading into your occult
outpeopled
by that ******-axe-murderer stare

i watch you ponder trecherously through
the irregular curly hairs on the nape of my
breast. pilgrim to
this
thin dying forest.we crack shins and
bounce off of eachother
into a cool
madness

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

where did these virtues come from?


peace beside your thought, nation
god is a Gun.
so what is Man?

shame to isolate them
fear to motivate them
love to move them as necessary .



power likes
predictability .

and big prediction breeds power.

.

//you've got to stay active.
she says, with eyes deeper than my own bronchitis voice .
shadowy in the way she stirs her cup
stepping over ice cubes with careful tiptoes of her
                                                           w r i s t.


she, there
[like light raking across the sides of pictureframes along the
hallway]
the edge of her jawline drips into my __ mug

steeped into dark


truth is i don't drink much coffee

there's a hot-time nevermind madling, and a girl with her back strapped to the wall, hair pushed to the side, knocking over shampoo bottles with the tips of her toes, one by one- into the too-cool water. and there's a ten year old song you've never heard before on the radio. and the treebranches she brings into her bedroom. and knowing she keeps a pocket knife in her jacket just for fun. wet white teeth. somebody loved me clean. the old fire wood. witch wire snares. walking in the dark. did this man find a woman under his kitchen sink. did he hold her with hands scabbed over like an old man's nose. up at ungodly hours of the morning.  we hold hands.   up like the electrical tape wrapped around her ****. we have no heroes. we try to hold conversations. we try to keep our cool.

.  []
in closed catacomb,

shunga-folds leaf into a starving candle
like offeringsas
officiates treacher towards the door


    ( )
    pooled-up thing at the lanky doorstep of
wildflowers;

   fern-moist breath through the hole in the
world.

   strangled gasp in the name of
historicity_











.

tie them to the
post of
* good god, it's america* .

shift.thrift.cut.grift.
eat them in the sight of

all.
\

it's plastic granite .
it's a brand new way:to
hate
     the
         night
                 away .


it's swaying in the
moonlight

in sight of
blight - and a regurgitated.Love


push.comes.to.shove
p-p-push.comes.to.shove

­push.comes.to.shove
p-p-push.comes.to.shove

push.comes.to.shove
­p-p-push.comes.to.shove

push.comes.to.shove
p-p-push.comes.to.sh­ove


push.comes.to.shove
p-p-push.comes.to.shove




push.comes.­to.shove
comes.to.push.comes.to.shove
comes.to.push.comes.to.shov­e
comes.to.push.comes.to.shove
comes.to.push.comes.to.shove
comes­.to.push.comes.to.shove

comes.to.push.comes.to.push.comes.to.pus­hcomes.to.shove

forgotten words for it.
small ornament beside the face

in need of fly paper
upon her return

the scan lines are layers of sediment
piled up
  in thin slices of observation
  over
  us

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

Where are our heroes?
There haven’t been any real heroes for hundreds of years,

Follow the truth. Seek justice.fight
For   good .

We teach this.
But who will follow?

Who will follow when we are being crushed under the weight of their fake god?


You ******* deranged lunatics.

the best
is that which imagines to be seeping out of a cave.from some
deep. secret.
undisturbed
place. where things go on for eons that no one knows about.
like a green light that makes its way up but barely.
sick but
beautiful

like a picture of AIDS.
like morgoths and morlocks dissolving into fossil fuels down where you'll never get it. 
like quartz.

atop tall buildings
and
watch.the
sleepy city.
fail to
wake

they shake
the
houses.they break

the
power-lines,
bloodlines,lines of fortune settled deep within the recessed creases of
the populace's
damp
        palms .


         ---

and in
failing to offer alms to the
dark
wanderers ,
mankind's blackened heart
prepares for each final
act of
self-betrayal .

and
clouds       open
                   to the
       closed .

Tumbles dry leaves around the train station

Tracy Chapman comes on,
And real life is real again.


Second-guess nothing,
And speak with Honesty.

the desert sand
moves through our eyelids
like other peoples’ problems that become
our own :

each woven loop, a desperate handhold of precious cargo
each intertwining thread-arm
shoulder to shoulder ,
dry.elbows locked /
@ a citystate’s walls
a crystal cathedral refracts the
prismcut pathways of the bright
   shawl slung over her neck like a
yolk//
   shivering at the tall gates of
this
****-farm for the ****-hearted

they turn her
away.
they turn into
men and **** the boys.they
fight back the
desire to love and
burn houses for the want of
                night-
                lights
on someone else’s
lawn.



hey, be. hey, be ye.

Is to look inside one’s self
And contemplate our honest desires that we dare not say aloud.

And even if there is no god listening,

It is still beautiful look upon one’s own
Mind,
In quiet admiration and
Respect .




Like brushing your teeth.