That feeling—
Night running between tree trunks,
Bark scraping your cheeks—
Before smashing face-first into:
Goosebumps,
   Neck snapped,
      The blood leaks,
That feeling is freedom—
Before you awake unfeeling your body,
Legs useless, mouth drooling dumb,
Welcome! You're one of us now,
The obedient numb.
I can! replaced by May I?
Physical stagnation, ornamental degradation
of the soul: the will dies always
Alone.

light shines through
moving leaves
like rays
of grated cheese

life is time borrowed
a wheat field softer than fur
flows,          under the scythe

I must precipitate their pain;
When I pass,
their faces close like shutters before the rain.

The tall young woman in a golden dress
spins a globe upon her desk and waits,
and waits till calloused finger comes to rest
upon an unknown wilderness. What spaces
lie yet undiscovered, like tabletops
to be uncovered / to be uncovered:
secret words within a foreign bookshop
under dust and under clutter—
Wiped clean! The tablecloth's pulled off! Now she
will be the first to glean their mysteries:
To see what no one else has ever seen,
To be where no one else has ever been.
Until nothing is obscured for her.
For hers is this world and she its explorer.

our land of the free
mason dixon
lines of *******
cowboys and aliens
crossing the southern border
lands streaming on twitch
live and coming to you from the L.A.
end times
with your host
the ghost of this debt's
gotta come due sometime,
sunshine,
if that don't **** us
first come, first serve

rain spears the surface
     each ripple becomes a tale
of diminishing

if you plant the seeds,
sun flowers shall, blooming, light
up the universe

I was born too late
to make it to work on time.
Tick-toxicity.

"Credit? Debit?" / "Mastercard."
Card goes in. Entering PIN.
BeepBeepBeepBeep. Remove card.
Processing—I listen
to the cold ambient music.
"Thank you, and have a nice day."
"You too." / The cashier sounds sick.
I have nothing more to say.
The same words repeated day
after day. a ritual
antipathetic display
of our common plastic soul–
lessness.

a feather dropping
pond water gently rippling
stillness to
stillness

the shadows passed
and they were gone
the shadows too

drums, as if; like quarterthump-thump
to the walking bassline, note after
note noted sax notes excavated some
-one -where -how 'lin screamin solo is hurt
in melody exploded (ain't got one)
pieces in a key of perpetual change
mode devours mood on sheets of sound
kind of giant blue steps taking miles by train
the future's improvised     and inwardbound.

spring succeeds chill air
old lindens leaf out and bloom
birdcall and tisane

a puddle returns
a reflection of the sun
and anyone

blackbird alighted on a branch,
frosted branch,
     deepest winter,
setting free the accumulated snow,
which fell,
     slow,
     like flour through a sifter,
and in one descending
flake,
     we are,
a universe apart,
reflecting briefly in the dark.

whales rise from the sea like blimps,
soaring,
we see them from rooftops,
plainly distorted,
through unclean high-rise windows,
in cars, gridlocked and craning
our fragile human necks,
inhaling smog,
blowholes struggling,
against the urban skyline—
they pop

there are no more whales anymore,
more and more, we wanted,
until there were no more
oceans, forests,
plains, only rocks, cliffsides and amenities
in which we churn, keeping our
heads down,
chins tucked safely,
never looking up, lest we see
the exploded whales raining down
on us, a final rain
of guilt and consequence

what's left when wonders fade
amusements end
and the games have all been played
could we even comprehend
such life without distraction
a life of focus:
a life of action

across the grass, the highrise
becomes the horizon,
as i lie on my back in the park,
and the line that separated land from sky
runs now vertically on
through evening into the dark.

crepuscular predation
**** the waning sun
weakest of the herd of stars
its luminance is almost done

The window is a mirror,
I am the pregnant charcoal sky,
Gazing out I see within,
Through the self- and self-reflexive lie,
That I am I am I,
Drops away, cool and clear and as winter near,
The truth precipitates,
The year's first snow accumulates,
Tossed by winds across the sky, vast and open as my mind,
In which is I,
In which is I forever going blind.

lightning swings its axe
into the sky as thunder
rolls the sun away

sorry, say the strong
to the weak ones they despise
empathy is lies

blood dries, bones break; sweat
and tears like rainwater flow
into the sewer

yesterday's raindrop
blown today from the oak tree
awakens me

I am leaves of tea,
Steeping till the water's cold,
Bitterness alone.

a tree falls / fall trees
reddening leaves leave red and
                            yellow evenings

come in with the moon
and stay awhile like starfish
stay in a tide pool
both of us under its sway
then parting—
                       moon pulling away

me and you and god
makes three:
i asked, do you believe
in polygamy?

let the gravestone say:
he was buried like was born,
crying and alive.

my yacht sails
     on the underside of the sea
my yacht sails
     unaffected by gravity
my yacht sails
     into ports which cannot be
my yacht sails
     an explorer of fantasy

summer air shimmers
sheets of melted glass flowing
through caverns of leaves

The summer lingers in days unending,
The past's seen dimly through a pool of time,
Warmth falls away like bodies descending,
The sun's extinguished by the horizon line.

cheers to all those blasted nights
when in reflected neon lights
your eyes so sadly glow
with lust
                for a future you will never know

pallisade of pines
     demarks the edge of childhood
           needles on the grass

in exchange, you—
deal, he cried, shaking my hand
hope you guess my name

leaves wait for the wind
     to blow before they rustle
before they—
     fall

the wind beats the stalks
bent, they do not break; they rise
grass lives; the wind dies

The wind carries winter upon its ice edge,
Daylight is cut, the minutes fall away,
Summer surpasses a mountain ledge,
Breathing in tomorrow, exhaling today.

the calm of a frog
consumed legs-first by a snake
a rare submission

tell me why the daises sing
they've no minds
and their bodies are decomposing
they've not souls
and winter is coming
tell me why
they are so happy all the time
am i also meant—
listen!
(their song is not a song of joy)
listen!
(their song is a lament)

skyscraped skyline  quarterwhite
in morning light mourning
       the ritual passing of the night,
the city by dreams wound wakes mechanical-like,
preprogrammed as the rising of the sun,
celestially powered
cars trains buses, everyone—
gears turning—
scurry scurry to gets things done.

never met a soft-button girl,
one I could keep in my pocket,
could fasten my shirt,
keep my jeans up,
on my hips.

never met a soft-button girl before,
only nylon string and elastic,
no good for stitching up wounds,
only good for lacerations—
she snapped,
again.

cup of tea passed round and round,
two steeped plants grown in the ground,
take a drink, and taste and think,
liquid flowing down the pink
throat / sound of silence, silence of the sound
of retching and the wretched world
got drowned—curdled, and
unwound:
reality spun into a sink,
inability to blink,
plaster cracking veins, blue and green,
spores falling
beneath a peeling skin now seen
the consciousness of which our minds are but
receivers and a screen,
if I want to scream, I'll scream
if I want to end, I'll end
but on the flow will go forever and—
on my bike I ride
knowing I am not I but eye
which from up on high perceives
I and I and I
and round and round the spoked wheel spins
without / within
asking: Albert Hoffman never left,
so where has he been?

i read therefore i am
temporarily dead,
i flee from life to sentences
of death,
illusory present tenses
dulling corporeal sensations,
complexity replaced
by linearity and pagination,
i have lived a thousand simulated lives!
yet i fear mine,
and the words upon a page
become *****
i am a reader because i am a coward,
slowly by my drug being devoured

Dawn-walking together, Beagle and I,
In a city grey and a'slumber-still,
On fading scent-paths of yesternight,
Down'by presence' past, toward the what-will (what-will).

Stutter,
Patrons ain't
often a city list en-
close lying odist arts
pea king smoothly the truth.
Amen.

St. Utter,
Patron Saint
of tenacity, listen
closely: in God I start
speaking smoothly the truth.
Amen.