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.

where did these virtues come from?
the law is there to protect old money.

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 .

.

//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.

is your own animal survival instincts
it’s not for medicating away
it’s for acting upon
                To
S u r v i v e
                  .

is this place’s version of Simon says .
Question is : where’s Simon?

Do you remember the importance of flower arrangements
During the greatest times of War?

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 .

are when your fingers are peeling
and bleeding
but you still reach into the ***** water

to do what you can

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.

It is not unfathomable to hope
That whatever cruelest hell that you are capable of conjuring in your soft mind,
Finds you swiftly ,
And stays with you long .

But gods have not dealt with Justice in thousands of years…

we linger
in those fuzz-****** images of
Home.
we take off, rocket-wise, and at heart-fast velocities
into the gathering pools of time
like lamp-centric product placement in the moth-saturated marketplace sector
like film
over whatever’s left in the glass
when you’re
done
i’ve  decided not to be
i’ve decided to swallow what once hunted
us
Here .

and the night breeze was like a half-remembered book about wild boys named after horses who die in the middle (who well know of such things.)
you banked the median HARD like the worst kind of skipping stone
and spat a small bullet of gum out at the ******* pickup on the other side of the road.

the 58% waning moon, cocked
like leaning one arm way far out the window .
the shed petals and leaf-buds hailing downwards from swaying canopy-archways into somewhere new /
pelting the windshield like softly homing drone-strikes upon the cool, black and yellow world.

when you had to take out the ©0₱ for his gun, a quick knife-draw cut away the body cam and went in hunt of dashboard tendons after finding his driverdoor unlocked.

-you filed down the numbers and naively measured the clinking paperweights shaken loose from the clip with calipers for later reference : to make sure you ordered the right ones when they ran out.

she cried

and cried
that night,

the getaway was clean.

the night air was
Perfect.

Everyday we trade away
Our
Memories for new ones
At the hands
Of unseen multitude devil moments :
Time .


In strong pursuits, we ask :
What is more valuable than gold ?

If
Lead is the alchemic force of rage,
It was used as an ingredient
In the making of the world

And
What do alchemists seek , if not the greatest treasure?
Not gold - a ready answer perhaps, for the convenient dismissal of
Fools who ask un-earned secrets of their
Masters .

No.
What do we seek, if not :
Tomorrow, itself?

And in doing so,
Become gods // spoken, these golden threads spun through like serpents along and
Down the tapestry of
The truest
Creation
      Myth .

We want only
Tomorrow.and a way to make it
Our
Own .

too special and not special enough

Of
Man .
The inherited
T h in g .

The
weight of the world sitting dumbly on
those fructose eyelids.

They, in turn.      melt into the mummified  
morning.

laying in the corner forever like a
favorite-shirt
ruined in the wash.
Every other stripe on you is stained pink
from
some cheap volunteer tee that ******              up
The whole load.

Each ray from the blinds
Takes some life away.


Searing past you- into the floorboards
with
quiet fury.

Time passes_
It shoves us down into compact spaces.
(but)
I thought of you
In a shoplifter's prayer.

(There is something left that evaporates out in the form of you)

I imagined you
Still.
But growing
Like
Crystal salts
Crusting up the pores of the earth.

Vapors fumbling upwards to rehydrate
My dry fingers_


We make decisions . that stick around.

We break off blisters. Rip little things that hang off our lips.
We take breaks before we need them.
Take too long to say
**** this.

Thoughtlessness.



Somewhere out there, they are screaming loud.

Somebody either cares or
Doesn't.


The marks on the carpet know better than
us
How to last forever

door  
$40 used on ebay
cleaned it up. made it good

(wore the **** out of that thing)
i found him there,

i fed him my paintings.
lured him out
with my bad poems. he
found friends in the array of ghosts i maintain under my fingernails,
and
in the old wool watchcap kept stuffed down at the bottom of my studio bag.

i fed him in the framingham night
and in the cold foreign springtime.
and we
made
peace-raids at the reservoir.
kept track
of the hours of "stargazing" spent there. while pale gods lay strewn  allover
the hillside
and in the rain
and the snow.
and the overcalculated days where it was too hot.

outside,
we sweated morphine
and ****** to tom waits,
luncheoned on the grass.
i
bore our banner and he reared his
black
buffalo head.
we slunk down into breakfast booths

i had soapy teeth.

he had a gut that burned slow like a trinket-drawer left
unopened for
years.
the ghost in my jacket, he shrinks down and curls up when he
should get big.
-reaches out to the tops of cabinets nobody can reach.
i remember him
my ghost thinks he's funny,
but
drawers get opened.
and ghosts get nervous
and coats get put away.

holds us.historically hostage
as our.future splays out like frayed wires
under the nav panel before [me]
this is your captain speaking,
we are going to be hitting some bumpy
a|r
remain seated/as you dare

they mightlike you but they don't understand
your

violence.they don't  get: you got to curate it a little.
i know- it's worth it in the end












































/

is performed on one’s self

now, that’s what i call alchemy vol. ||1iIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii­iiiiiiiii
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiu­uiiiiiiiiiiiiii

the warmth of dusk,
cold science of night,
holding on to the promise of
changing,  with weary fingers
tracing shapes on
invisible seconds,
that came before:
-improbable.

I was entranced to begin with.
nothing you could have done would've changed that.

as music the fills hall-less, drifting assembly
of
[]ears

seeking, ever skyward, a pedestal to
****
from


demigods and demagogues.hum.with  the
white-hot vibration of  
          erasure  

needing to sting
like needing to
***;


needing to *** like
needing
   bread;


dis mantling   the
lapis-dark
shawl of the
           night

in search of
   the
hubris
    of
  other .

their kindness


    is a kind of lobotomized love.+pushing paper around.like making everdistant promises of delivered goods

//:scarring dragonbelly sized trenches into the slowchurning flesh of the world.a widening gap between
actualized.v.abstract justice .            1t’s virtue on credit,
paid off in laundry loops w/o a tangible exchange .



   choose
   now!


or find these heart-sized boxes made of an entropic eventuality:this habitual tug into the center_towards willful repose _laying down.beside
the fluttering lashes,glazed over in the cool bath of dawn
///
waking too late
loving too late
******* too late .
***-slung beside the driveway sun.

i lift my soft scale belly to the yawning expanse,
       aim now !

aim now ! !

                                aim now ! ! !



?:

Was cut
A long time ago.