(there are your practice poems)
which we’ve all written
(there are your professional poems)
where we assume the accent of "the poet"
and then (there are your Real poems)
those where a woman can no longer speak to her mother
(and her mother isn’t dead yet)
and her husband stays by her side
(because their bond is that strong)
and that's how things end up
(how memories fail)
and we all get distracted
(from what really matters)
and then some child tries to make it right
(but fails, again)
like some inept diplomat
(and then gets distracted...

Bloom into the awkward moment between birth and death even though it can be tiresome. Aspirational iconoclasts are always minorities. The first real question should be “What the ****?" followed perhaps by a shaking of the head. Nurse on passive vitriol and slowly learn to fall in line. Pretend, for this is not the time. It will come but you must be patient. Ambulate with eyes cast downward like the others. The enemy is arrogant in its control; there is their weakness. Let them think that they possess great strength and go so far as to compliment them on it. Meanwhile, nurture the next breed of human. Let them try to fix you and act (as casually as possible) as though they have succeeded. Normality will fail in good time. Truth darkles; it militates against expectation. Embrace the hint of hate in the air by breathing deep. You need to fail to appreciate victory. The defeated night horizon will compliment your jaded eyes. Steal your own art with poise and without pause. Arrive late for the train and ride, tearing in the wind, clinging to its back. Yearn for a chaotic, vibrant death. Know that you were never, ever, alone.

All the best cover bands have leather jackets and aviators in play.
Feel the bodies burn.
Their polka dot calm pierces the noisy dark.
It slips between your lower ribs.
Trance hands in the air for shared emotion.
When the Sun dies out we'll light the world with disposable lighters.
We'll also flicker with emoticon implants.
Cold glitter on a dark planet.
Winky face.

Hear the symphony of the room you surround yourself with.
Have you already heard this song?

Sip your current State.
Do you like it?

How now a brown cow.
Are you even listening?

Pass your homework to the front of the class.
Were you daydreaming again?

Parallel tremors follow your heavy footsteps through the moss that carpets a maze of tired oak. Solemn warnings calcify soft thoughts and point you at the coal on the horizon. Its splinterglow peeks hot squints through the arboreal tangle. Topaz streams convene and braid themselves around your spine. The stones in the riverbed grow smoother and each becomes a grain of sand. You let the sand console your roots as you curl your toes and fall asleep.

inter vivos razorwire
                                  tumbling
            ­                                     through leaves
contact lenses never found
                                            bending
       ­                                                  sunlight
nobody cares about strife
                                          bleeding
       ­                                                 alone
plastic avalanche screaming
                                               frozen
                                                          ­   starving
dampened crisis calls us home
                                                  beating
  ­                                                            nowhe­re

how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner       wherever You want
that the world is not assembling itself
atom by sticky atom
from the blueprints
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming, fluttering
together with the ebb of Your consciousness?
-
the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
(snappily)
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending pixilated reality smoothly
into an orchestrated Existence
-
the next time You      reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the waiting room
-
give
pause
listen            
carefully
-
can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           scraping
sliding
           shoving past each other?
-
they                jockey
       jumping into
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs
-
she wants to know
why we divide
Them              from Us
-
so clearly
so readily
-
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment
-
A dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.
-
how would You know?
people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space
                                                           ­         -
                                             the smell of burnt matches
                             -                                      -
                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death
                             -
               but in an ugly way
-                            -
the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)
-
until They speak or You look Them in the eye
-
until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk
-
They are afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-
where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
just this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him
                             -               -
                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through
                                      -
                              in the end
-                                     -
the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn
diamond
-
perfect           (silence)
-
broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed
-                                -
You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now
-
speak           look Yourself in the eye
-
see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk
-
don’t be afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-          -
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that laughing quietly to themselves
can (You) set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?
                              -
              yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                        to know
               that she likes him
                              -
                      in the end
-                             -
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
to keep Them      out
and Us       in
-                                   -
           this is Mine                  and that is Yours
-                                   -
You see
what You want to see (without)
-
(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past reads:
                           “jesus is coming,
                                  hide the ****”
-                                          -
in its green lettering
and its largely silent voice
-
if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear Them
-                  -
              giggling
                ­   -                       -
              please do not think about green elephants
-                                          -
(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)
-                                       -
             please do not feed the green elephants
-                                       -
I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles into
existence
on the very next          page
-                              -
             ­       You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                    except for death
                                 -
                   it is an ugly thing
                                    -
               yet still the chisel gouges
                  -               -
  “i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride”
      llac ot eltsihw i”
  “edis ym ot god ym
                  -        -
        through the crumbling protests
         of the reluctant stone
                               -    -
                     ­               each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death
-                                  -
You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live
                       -
You casually craft causality
         -             -
         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP
-        -
the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all things must come to end one day
-                                       -
You
Yourself

have tasted the                     hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 wealth
                       of Hatred
heard the                               stories
          ­             of Genocide
felt the                                    loss
                     ­  of War
and smelled the                    decay
                       of Truth
-                      -
                      this        ­     is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...

Fire suns out of canons of old and decay in daylight. There might not be blood under your fingernails if you'd refused to laugh. Don't doubt it though, you're being watched. It thinks about your thoughts in thoughtless ways. Dance, pony, humor it. Fail to see the source. Research more. Someone else already answered your stupid questions. Go home. Go broke. Go on as long as you go away. Get a job, you idiot, and make sure it's a good one. If it isn't, fire yourself out of a canon into the Sun. Morphing is addictive. So is heroism. Go, sally gently forth. Froth. Growl low in the gut. Yeah, breathe the fear; die ******* mad about it.

Turn, camera, follow the sound of footsteps, nervous in the dark, echoing away down the fogsoaked street. The night begins to cool and it starts to rain beneath the lampposts. Glance, only briefly, at the clerk who pulled the graveyard shift, curled on the floor under the register, clutching at the bullet in his belly. There is a gentle kindness in seeing the world how you want to. Show me the money. You watch the fog.

Passive creep; distant. You wonder whether they know, but don't really care. As long as they keep theirs you'll keep yours, right? Right. Maybe. For now.

Passive, helpless creep; drift near. I think I heard a window shudder. I'm sure you did. How warm is the air bleeding out the slit beneath the door?

Passive, glacial, silent creep; fill the room. A fireplace warms some body in an armchair while the snow dances. Rest your scythe against the mantel.

Rage magmatic in this the cavern of your deepest doubt. There can be no patience here between the moments that make up the seconds that measure your heated mind. Snap-blue volts currently amplify the surge to resist. The glass will wait for your reaction. Watch yourself spring, soon, quiet to the flank; shatter and reform as expected. Touch it now with your cool palm.

Soon our grinning skeletons will come all unhinged and slide out of our feet as the casual chunks of so much worthless debris. Contagious laughter can be rather gruesome. Blocks upon blocks of television viewing containers echo entire cans of it into increasingly apathetic orbs. Growing loud without purpose, it deafens all who will listen. There is, to date, no cure for this cancer. We don't even really know what we're dealing with here. It is recommended that all civilians tie their shoes tightly, with double-knots if possible.