Mister Maxwell reads the paper
Of the party that he pays for
And with subtle nods agrees
With each printed word he reads
He knows all the phrases to say
About the topics of the day
And he's politically engaged
(Marching in manifestations)
And appropriately enraged
(By violence and discrimination)
To be a hero of society:
A once-born self that's ceased to be,
A real symptom of democracy!
A truly enlightened zombie!

late
in lamplight's hiss
I sat and watched the attic dust
dance under spotlights cast
by moonbeam
          skylights
on a stage of memory
and forgetting

Wisdom carved in stone
is lost / what we know we know
under an accumulation of moss

grass wet with cold dew
the dawn light bathes me anew
asleep beside you

why do you have wings
if not to fly? /  for me to
pin you down by—

Mother make me low
for only during times of sadness
do we know
the warning signs of madness

Father make me scream
for it is only subsequent to rage
we dream
always of a better age

Mirror make me die
for it is solely when we hate
we know the lie:
we can escape our fate

The world inside / the house
is empty, and you're hanging on-
to the railing one final time,
before your father starts the engine /
you're moving out / you're gone
deep into your book, the one
you took (from the library with no
intention of giving back) so long,
childhood; so long: shadows
expanding on the lawn as you sink
into your thoughts / into the wall,
feshly painted so the house would sell,
reading: receding: what you could never tell
your parents. [ ... ]
"Let's go," your mother calls,
but you're no longer there. She doesn't
notice that you're staying / it isn't
you who is obeying, exiting the door.

dumb wind blows away
all the words smart people say
progress is decay

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

Dust spirits dance in empty houses,
Parents fall ill,
     Families move,
Childhood lasts until words which soothed
no longer do,
Imagination introduces us to friends,
     in unexpected places,
          in necessary situations,
Remember: not all who ail shall pass away,
But sometimes sacrifice is made,
New friends seem scary,
But never be afraid
     to give up the umbrella that you carry
     for a leaf is scant protection from the rain,
In dreams giant trees grow from seeds
     watered by joy,
Believe that they persist,
For when comes the day to pack your toys,
     and move away,
When youthful years have passed to adult grey,
The distinction between memory and dream ceases to exist,
Dissolving into mist,
Through which you can still make out their silhouettes:
You, Totoro and the cat bus.

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

when the last wear has withered
and the wardrobe echoes
cold memories of empty metal hangers
like falling rain
know you are not poor
undignified or old
rejoice! in the bareness of your porous skin
not hidden by the dead folds
of material—
your soul is a prism
splitting light into threads respun
by God;
every dawn you are rewoven
as the rays of a new sun

converging clouds create
a celestial ceiling
a disappearing of the sun's rays
an ominous feeling of the revealing
of the truth:
the world's been packed
into an intergalactic burlap sack,
taken—
and we are not coming back
world-napped—
never to be awakened.
kiss us, but
the prince is not handsome,
we are alone, so
no one will pay our ransom.

I've a clever little friend
who guides me to
a world of neverend
where all the twists of fate
are twine
wrapped around my compass mind
pointing north
or in
or through
an acute tangle of you
th—

nothing but the wind
escapes this abandoned house;
flowing,       it pushes
all the sunlight out   until
we are alone in darkness

banker's lamp green light of envy because
she will never be his late office nights
work done beneath sheer illicit thoughts
of her and her blue dress become his flights
of fancy wrapped tightly around her waist
blinds half-drawn the city is invasive
automobile engines and cigarettes
smell of lost love, dust, marriage and regrets
their futures already both faint shadows
on the walls outside the halls are empty
the desk is wet with sweat nobody knows
so they are free how empty they will leave
for homes already broken bittersweet
lives caught on repeat caught on repeat

i am daylight burned
into your skin / buried deep
                   seeping out as sin

Let's lose our minds amongst the olive trees
Labyrinth of oiled imagination
Twirl like falling leaves / falling to our knees
in unbalanced joy and veneration
of ourselves. For there is nobody else
but us; there is no other time but now,
Red flowers bloom. A blue shadow propels
a still landscape into being somehow
fluid. Timelessly we swim, wet within
each brush stroke branch and painted wave of wild
emancipation—to forget the din
of the wretched asylum. Vincent smiled:
Dive too deep and you shall go insane,
The olive grove remains the other side of the pane.

Wronged figures encircle the world. Saturn's
rings of martyrdom expectant beseech
God, The pain we suffered in your Name, return
it from beyond our graves. With vengeance teach
our torment to those who made us suffer!
Impale their bodies on bolts of thunder,
Black bones and roasted flesh, they are but slurs
against Holiness. Tear them asunder!
And for us, the white robes of salvation,
And words of eternal comfort: Patience
and faith in the Lord of all creation,
whose rewards in Heaven will be immense.
All the hurt you have borne shall be lifted,
Through Him, foreverness is gifted.

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

If forgetting encroaches,
Build a pallisade of memory,
Gathering within
all worth remembering.
This, He said, is my instruction:
Understand it as allegory
at the risk of your self-destruction.

twas someonce in an ancient days
when true temporal haze
i gazed seein the fall of humankindness,
i says, once-and-for-all, once-and-
for all time be encyclical
past's passed only in the presence
of a future samefold
be as was / same old / isas will be
foreshadows cast by history
fall upon the daze of destiny
fate is read not in lines not written
but in those allread-composed
pre-viciously

a feather dropping
pond water gently rippling
stillness to
stillness

When I sleep,
I am awake,
As I wake,
I was asleep,
Wakefulness
is merely seeping,
Of our darkly,
Deepest sleeping.

The flag blew,
                         asking
Is it wind or flag which moves?
Wise man speaks:
                                It's you.

Bodies jostle toward the heatsource,
Foot stomp, elbowed in the rib,
Muttering voices hoarse, exhale mists
That swirl like deadmen's ashes in the wind.
Pale lumina saturates the cinder skies,
Under which the aged remember
The suns of former lives,
Their memories the glowing solitary embers
Of a world we've left behind.
Ahead, a mother veils her babe with rags
From a passer-by's ravenous gaze.
A man automatously drags
A rattle-bag of assorted human remains,
Leaving trails in the dirt,
Leaving trails in the dirt.
We have splintered apart the frame
Of this landscape of hellpain,
Against smokestack sequoias and asphalt seas,
We stumble toward the crematoria.
My God, the coldness hurts!
As upon the canvas of this frozen Earth
We enact the terminus of human innovation,
The burning of every breath,
The engineered suicide of civilization.
Out, out, brief candle,
said Macbeth.
Into the cull chamber I step,
Hoping there at least I will find warmth,
In death.

steaming, pleasure drips
milked from the bloated udders
of faceless others

With tweezers I relieve her of the pearls within her eyes / The experiment is finished: Experience and I have ****** her dry / Iris-less she cries, but her tears arise like incense to the skies / How sweet the fragrant plumes of her demise! / I ignore her cries; I have gained my prize / And soon her voice will wane / An infinity of ever-fading sighs | An affinity for exculpatory lies...

buy love buy happy
nest balanced on a cliff's edge
what's bought is sold too

Three poplars grow along the river bank,
Three poplars reflected in the current,
Past is paint and the future is a blank
Canvas framed with poplar wood recurrent,
Reeds sway silently,
Tree trunks climb crooked,
Colors blur like smoky clouds unfurling
Colors blurring cloudy smoke rings spread
Across a pastel sky. Autumnal swirl
in kingly golden glow—presages:
Brush be quick / the sun dips / the light changes
Capture it before it rearranges!

someone once said,
a negative mind will never give you a positive life,
but that is itself a negative thought,
which must be the product of a negative mind,
if it is true, it's false,
and if it is false, it's true,
but what identifies a princess is not a tiara but a shoe,
or, positively said,
a negative mind will give you a positive life,
for to live uncritically
is indistinguishable from being dead

accepting nothing
think without disconcerting
the unity of—
hear

You and I canoe down neon waterfalls,
Smelling cinnamon and sinsemilla,
Through sockets cascading melted eyeballs,
Intermixed with honey and vanilla,
We push paddle towards combusting shores,
Cloaked in pellucid smoke and glimmer mist,
Black sky alive with buzzing glowbug spores,
We must inhale to know that we exist,
But what if the hazy vapor-stew's too thick,
Paddles stick: viscosity of time,
When the sporal secretions make us sick,
What will become of the horizon line,
Will it burn to charcoal reality
Or conjure us sublime finality?

a puddle returns
a reflection of the sun
and anyone

in the arctic air
the sins of the tundra are
absolved
                in passing

We shelter in caves
Beneath a man-made steel sky
Once reflective of our soul
Now corroded, its reflection a reminder of our great lie
That the Earth could be tamed
Exploited and submitted in the name
Of the human race
Now it is we who must abase ourselves
Deep underground
As above the megastorms tear apart the heavens
Grinding all the atmospheric rust
into vicious orange clouds
Which fall upon us: a forever-rain of dust
Blue oceans smothered
Forests choked
Fields unrecovered
Fires infinitely stoked
We dreamed once of going to Mars
But see instead it's Mars that's come to us
Descended people of a dead planet
We reap the fallen dust
We weep
       the falling dust

Everything happens at once. The mixing
of blue-green dropping white on cold brown rocks,
a maelstrom of water sounds affixing
themselves to fine hovering mist which talks
pouring and pounding to the surroundings,
flat river interrupted; sculpted liquid
fluctuations arising / collapsing
ever-changing life depicted in mid—
crest: trough, tribulation, swirl and foam,
scented moisture feels soft over the jagged
undercurrent. A fish jumps. Water carves stone.
We are released: through spray the river flows,
exiting the eddy and peacefully home.

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

The British anthropologist enjoyed rare tribesmen.
But after seeing his article published in the prestigious Journal of Anthropological Research,
he kept the poor man on the coals a little longer,
thinking, "Well done, old chap."

woodcutter's sunlight
absent like truth at the gate
at raintime; strangers'
memories, flowing as mud
a samurai was killed, but—

the mountains rebel
       rising up against the earth
anti-gravity

The specialists hold open their dry mouths,
From which sprout-out scarlet jargonias,
Nonsensyllables resistant to drought,
That blooming reek of death and ammonia.

every day is a second chance
as the first is already lost,
every love is a second dance
as the first still plays in your thoughts,
every life: a second glance
at a past at present not worth its cost.

by brightness
you are my second sun
though your gravity is such
you are
my only one

the night cracks the sun
like an egg into a pan
over the ocean