I am not a sentimental man but
I remember the tallness of some relatives ceiling and the lights around the table where they sat.
I remember the other, squat ceiling where we lined up and my grandmother cried and in the next room there was body laid out.

It is 7pm and my uncle is giving me birthday money.
It is 3am and he's screaming, pepper spraying a man in handcuffs.
In the same way I'll walk home and see them waving their nightsticks and the boy on the corner with his head leaking.
I'll take a different route home and forget it by that evening. Later I'll suddenly remember it forever.
But I am not a sentimental man.

But don't we all know about the created men, the false women

The splashes on an ageing page

The moments of voyeurism with no walls to speak of

The unborn, never been, never beaten ones we follow to see stagger through a room unlike ours, embracing before they even reach the bed

But don't we all feel the flicker at our centre
Of the imperceptible ever changing light that illuminates the words:

*"Days ahead you will be spent
Days ahead you will be weighed up in stone stronger than and words freer than
Days ahead they will play a meagre game of cards with your memory and then put the deck away."

Beer floats
So does glass
And the trains

You pass them every weekday and sooner or later it looks like some sort of tarpaulin or a giant business-white circus tent.
It gets to the point you want to approach one of the security guards and ask how it all stays up there.
But the announcements are on and you have time to keep.

The road goes far across the earth
That's what roads are meant to do
But rush along, away from us
And we'll still find room for you.

Your body chains you to the floor
That's what body's are meant to do
Build it, break it or attempt disguise
And we'll still find room for you.

The sky it howls, the ground it dies
That's what the Earth is meant to do
Crawl through wind and lacerations
And we'll still find room for you.

Your words are rich and mould the air
That's what words are meant to do
Scream defiance down the road
And with your body
And to the sky and soil
And to any and all you captivate
But we'll still find room for you.

There is no exit

If I only could, I would become The Marlboro Man. (You know, the one from those old advertisements)

In my two dimensional prairie I would ****** my horse through canyons and make out with cigarettes.
There would be nothing behind my gaze.

But before long my sharp billboard eyes would see the desperate old face in the sky, still trusting, willing me on for one last time.

So then I'd slump into some 2D shack and drink myself to death.
People would gather around and say "He was a bad sort, wasn't he?
They say he was impotent."

Attractive white fences. Lacerated earth.
Dead houses of wet wood and imagined dreams.
Cold stabbing ridges.
Rushing from my island and pouring open into another's bloodstream. Glass. Antlers. Wheels. Hooves.
Against this I have God's word that I can **** something.
The more today
The less tomorrow.

The Warped Man
He opens his veins and lets invisible blood flow in.

The Warped Soil
From where his **** sinks into the earth like a clenched fist.

The Warped River.
A fake bloodstream. Dumpster of The Soil. Promises. Threats. Velocity. Value.

The Warped Sea
Born outwards, ejected from an invisible heaven. Poisoned by the soil it kisses. Pumped with hypodermic streams.

The Warped Sky
Looks to the sea and follows .
Once a mirror of our potential.
Now it gets ****** a heckles us.

The Warped Child
Mushroom jungle above him.
Dreams of the dust.
Exiled by everything.
Tell him what to breathe and he will inhale it.

The Moon
A silent prodigal lord.
It gave us light to obscure.
It gave us lakes to **** in.
It gave us maps to conquer.
And it once gave us dreams.