To make a list does not
(Zwei Füße fühlen kein Grund,)
require me to engage in
(während ich den Tier,)
an act of verbing so necessitated
(den im Tiefen warten,)
by the human mind
(weil es gibt kein Land)
because this mind is
(unter mich zu)
the mortal expression
(stehen auf.)
of our differences.
(Ich schwebe immer.)

Girls walk by
while i, inside,
desire the words, the smile,
the way
to their delicate pillow place of dreams.

cannot save us.
(inside from a negated self)
For its existence merely shows
(who claws at instruments and pages)
that our minds
(created not for me but for those who like to)
need some clever distraction,
(indulge delusions of grandeur)
a momentary Zahir,
(and succumb to)
a religious ******,
(messiahs of mass mentality.  From Deep within I beg myself to remain)
for illusions of the separation of ourselves from
(saying nothing and using time only to scream.)

this.

You walk a tightrope between
a photograph and my mind;
with careful steps i create you,
slowly, and imbue the figmented you
with your delicacy and beauty.

I know that you cannot exist in the space here;
the distance between my eyes and your portrait,
without having existed in my perceptions
at some other point before this moment,
and that right now
the real you
lives at a distance from me which mere miles cannot express.

But right now I am happy
to have you balancing on some invisible thread
which extends out to my face from your printed likeness,
for i am free to contemplate how to balance you
into the waking and sleeping moments of my life
without worrying about
where my tip-toeing steps fall
along lines of romantic delusion
and existential affection.

The insignificant ant
trapped in my jar
prompts the only
significant question:
Do my experiments maim and destruct
or aid and enable?

Eye dough knot wah aunt two Nome oar. Dew ewe here me? May key me stoop Id.

(For one)
I don't want
(to know more of)
the way seconds never cease colliding into
(something, either external or internal to)
others in a rippling shimmer of
(the consciousness, is)
moments that never possess the finality
(a divine madness of quantification.)
which we cry of to
(The Ego, who comparatively weighs)
others in re-tellings of
(self against anything not defined by)
our lives. This
(the chemical current of self-awareness,)
is a truth too often refused
(in accepting such divine madness)
from our emotional responses
(begins a spewing tornado of self deterioration)
to physical objects
(as the universe which contains self)
and our fluctuating position
(begins to fully exist.)
to them. Yet, in that
(As the universe is more fully known)
i live in a continual agony
(by constructs of the conscious self,)
which knows not the ceasing satisfaction of
(the increasingly perceived universe, which begins to outweigh)
the total fulfillment of
(constructs of self,)
a singularity of identity in space and time,
(makes existence appear impossible)
are the screams of my eternality.

If i am wordless before it, does its blankness infect me?
As the page is filled, do i become more blank?
Or, worst of all,
do i, in filling this page, feel fulfilled?

The **** squelches underneath
fingertips, whose only barrier
is plushly folded paper.
Clench, release, dispose,
rinse, and flush away
the human
oh so human.

Greed is a fencepost,
her thighs are laced with barbwire
towering so tall.

You shall not have me
for i am enormously
so much more than you.

Greed lies between thighs
tongue deep inside the lip folds;
this is mine, all mine.

Maybe the sensual emotions involved
are the same for
grrls,
but i doubt it
because they don't need a mirror to do it
and are not continually running into
that old forgotten friend
of a face.

I am possesed by rain and spiders
clinging to the limbs of trees
as they sway like the arms
of dancers in the wind.
These things scoff at my existence
and my insistence to record
their vitality
in bitter, unrequited attempts
to find my own.
But the clocks will spin
and most of the sleepers will awake.
The rest can only hope that
they know the worst nightmare
belongs to someone else,
as we who are awake
can only hope
that the nightmare doesn't find us here,
tinkering away existence
in rooms with walls,
as though anythings could keep our nature
away. As though all which possesses me
now would fail to break a part of me off;
something immeasurable and weightless
that i never owned
to begin with.

The sun comes up and
the day goes down,
down, down the mainline,
escaping to some solace
pressed between the thighs of the sun
and the curls of the moon;
the lovers of the sky
and all our feeble perceptions of time
waltzing behind our dew drop minds.

I press and dry my mind
between stains of earth and
prefabricated wood pulp, dried to a
leafy crisp that will singe with enough friction.

There are no echoes of ourselves
but i have my laughs
with the anthills of our skyscrapers
and the inhuman city sounds.
These things aren't precious,
that's just a predisposed opinion,
but they do exist more than i do.
Even right now i am not here
but something invisible presses down the fabric of a chair
and my soul fills with sorry
for the life it will never have.

The door of a fifth wheel trailer clanged open from across the street, and a man that looked a few years older than me with a shaved head and clumsy stature ambled out of the trailer. He left the door wide open, and on the small concrete patio next to the trailer took a hit off of a pipe filled with ****. He exhaled a few moments later, and let the *** smoke join the cotton tree seeds in the afternoon air. I watched all of this with moderate disinterest, and then plunged back into Buk’s evocations of the old gods as the man plunged back into the trailer. He left the door open.
More activity quickly followed, however, and I scarcely made it through another poem before the noise arrived at my spot. Apparently the man had begun to act reckless, and an elderly lady began chastising him about his behavior.
“Shawn, knock it off! You’re going to break something,” the woman intoned. It was almost a whine really, and at the sound of her voice I was almost tempted to go assist Shawn in breaking some of her things. Shawn replied with odd laughter, and a crash could be heard from inside the trailer. He then stumbled outside, and started behaving like a four year old boy would. He picked up a few things that lay scattered about the trailer, and then immediately lost interest in them and threw them back down with reckless abandon.
“You’re being reckless, Shawn. Stop it.” The woman obviously shared my critique of his actions.
Shawn didn’t stop it, whatever that was, and kept rummaging through things before tossing them about. He fell down as he tripped over a few of the things he threw aside, and screamed “Fuuuuuuucckkkkkk!!!” Yep. He was acting just like a four year old boy; full of ****, vinegar, and conquest right up until the world socked him one in the mouth.
“You’re going to hurt yourself! Cut it out!” It was funny how she kept saying essentially the same things in the same tone of voice, but I was glad at least that her attention had shifted away from material possessions. I mused to myself that some people just can’t handle their ****, and attempted to try and lose myself between the dry pages of a decades old library book again.
The universe must have had other plans for all of that though. The man kept staggering into things and screaming ****** ****** when he fell over, while the woman kept at her nasally whine. Only occasionally was her existence even acknowledged by Shawn, and this was done through the clever use of the phrase, “*******!” After spewing forth a vulgarity he would then resume his parade as ruler and champion of all; subject to only the merciless force of gravity and his drug addled mind.
My peace was disturbed by these shouts of anger, self induced failure, and recrimination, but the peace was replaced with a subtle interest. Overall, I wished the whole thing to stop, or that I had my key with me and could simply ignore the calamity of it all, but since neither of these two things would occur I felt as though I should break from my reading and enjoy the spectacle of life around me. Apparently, however, this other elderly man’s peace was far more disturbed than mine, and he walked over to ask the lady if she needed help, not realizing that he was not solving anything, but merely adding to the production unfolding before my eyes. The man and the woman spoke for a bit as Shawn ran about, stumbling into the trailer before finally managing to step inside of it. The woman mentioned to the man something about Shawn being a diabetic and that he hadn’t had anything to eat today, and then she asked Shawn for the sugar. Shawn’s hand promptly popped out of the trailer and presented a pink box of sugar. He was completely oblivious to the fact that the sugar was really for him, and so the woman then asked Shawn to eat some of it, which brought back a warranted, “*******!” Shawn then jumped out of the trailer, clearing the miniscule metal step-ladder which was placed at the door for easier access, landed, lost his balance, sputtered around on his feet for a second, caught his balance, and then ambled towards the back of the trailer where he tripped over something and fell to the ground, catching the corner of the trailer with his body on the way down.
“OOOOWWWWWWIIIIEEEE!!!!” He screamed from the ground. I felt like applauding, but instead resolved to keep my response limited to stifled laughter. Shawn stood back up, took another two steps so that the trailer blocked his body from my line of sight, and I heard him hit something hard and metal before again screaming, “FUUUCCKKK!! OUCH OUCH OUUUUCH!!!” The urge to applaud came up again,  but I couldn’t disturb the production by breaking the fourth wall between myself and the actors.
“I just…” the lady sighed with her hands running through her hair, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him…”
The old man asked, “Is there anyone you want to call?”
“I don’t know…” Both hands came to rest in her hair at the back of her head.
“You could call an ambulance.”
“I know… Just… Shawn! Eat some sugar, hon.”
“*******!!” Shawn darted back inside the trailer.

(From "Dying Whispers")


The first emotions he ever felt were pain and surprise. His feeling of pain came from witnessing the pain of another, and his surprise stemmed from the fact that he had, for the first time in his existence, ever felt anything at all. Explaining this all is a complicated matter, but I will do my best to make it intelligible. It is a story that passed the universe by with hardly a notice. Whether it was an accident or something other that has made me the only human to know this story is beyond my grasp, yet I feel this story is one that should be paid greater attention to, so this is my attempt to bring it to a greater audience. With any luck they’ll help me out with it in the long run, but there is really no appealing to them, so I feel that this is solely in my hands at this point.
Firstly, referring the character of this story as a ‘he’ is quite a misnomer. They, the beings that he is a part of, have no gender; they have no need for it. To be even more specific, they possess no body that we are capable of understanding. I can only guess at what type of form they actually have, and this is because they do not exist on the same dimensional plane as we do. If one of us were to superficially grasp the concept of their existence we might assume them to be gods, and I suppose, under some terms of classification this could be correct. But they are both more and less, hopefully by the end of this you will understand that.
Secondly, there is no name that we could attribute to them in our reality. I have grown into the habit of calling them ‘Whisperers’, because it is the closest word I could think of to describe what it is that they do. From what they have let me glimpse their kind is obscenely ancient, if not eternal. This is not to say that they do not have a form of birth and death, but seeing as to how I can scarcely conceive my own creation or demise I never would expect to understand theirs. By now you either can understand the complications of giving this character a gender, let alone attributing it with a name… or you think that I’m considerably insane, and I do not think I can blame you. Yet, for now, I will refer to the character as ‘he’ just for the sheer simplicity of it, and continue with my attempt to re-create this ancient story for those of you who are giving me the benefit of the doubt.
The Whisperers were present at the creation of our universe, whether they existed previous to it, or will continue to be after it I do not know. But they were there at the instant energy cooled and matter came to be, whispering and influencing everything. This is what they do ultimately; speak and influence with a staggering omnipotence. There are multitudes of them, however, so there are specific Whisperers influencing specific facets of the universe, but they seem to operate with a collective pool of knowledge. They are able to perfectly understand, at once, the entirety of our universe, as well as hundreds of others. From the actions and movements of an electron in an atom at the farthest reaches of space, to the complete movements of all the galaxies that make up space, and even to the thoughts and hopes of all beings capable of such feats, all is understood and seen, simultaneously, by each separate Whisperer. With this information the Whisperers view the changes that they have set forth in the universe, as well as the changes they never actually made and those that they will make.
Despite having a collective pool of information, they actually operate rather individually from one another with their influences, and rarely get involved in the affairs of other Whisperers, yet, often the actions of one will affect the actions of another. Each Whisperer affects it’s own portion of the universe. There are some who concern themselves with affecting the movements of  several constellations, while others may focus on the growth and changes of a singular plant or animal. Every facet of our universe we can conceive has at least one Whisperer affecting it, and even things of other universes our minds cannot come to terms with are governed. Even the things we have come to assume as human creations such as mathematics, language, politics, religion, and musical theory are, rather thoroughly, controlled by the Whisperers. Not even the emotions of any single creature are unnoticed or unaffected by them.

Some movie on Lifetime
ends itself.
I feel like i should
push these keys again
and try to make
some sense of self…
but overall i’m disappointed
because I know that it’s not self
that i’m trying to make sense of.
I’m trying to make sense of this computer,
and the sewing machine
on the table next to it,
and the air conditioning,
and whether or not it’s acceptable
to mention modern innovations
in poetry.

For example, if,
in a poem alone
(because i can talk to you through other mediums),
i tell you
(we’ll get to who you are in a bit)
that i
(don’t worry about who i am)
texted a girl,
(and she’s just as nameless as you are)
does the fact that i mentioned something modern
detract from the significance of the poem?

Of course,
poetry is all about the use of words as well
(sometimes we hang them from the walls
just to see how they make us look),
so i guess really the question is
whether or not
you managed to make it all work
in a way that makes sense to you.

Because honestly it’s worthless what I have to say;
you’re constructing these phrases
piecemeal
(in your head)
as we
(yes,
i’m there too)
push the buttons
(ahh, can you feel it?)
on this computer
to make us
spit out
images.

Haha,
psyche.
these are just black specks
on a white background;
our mind only attempts to give them significance
because we lack it as well.

You ever get the sense
like someone is constantly
riding your ***?

I have been living with my grandma
who weighs maybe 280
and has arthritis in...
well, everything it seems,
and i've never seen her move
from her reclining chair
until i came here.
Then i started to notice something strange,
she gets up and finds a reason to move
into whatever room
i go into.

I've given up talking to her
because she never has anything interesting to say;
just things like
"It's sunny outside today,"
(she only goes outside to get in her car)
or "I'm feeling warm, what's the thermostat at?"
(she sweats bullets any time it's warmer than 72 degrees)
or "If you're making a sandwich,
could you make me one too please?"
(i'm not going into how much she eats)
or, on a really special day
she'll coment on the activities of the neighbors
that she can spy on from her window
next to her chair
(i almost always have to pull the blinds up for her).

Even now as i'm writing this
she's found her way to where i am,
and i've never heard someone
make so much noise while reading a newspaper.
She seems to fold and crinkle and giggle
just so i'll know she's there

Still,
i always do find it amusing
how everyone in the world acts like a child
and is afraid to be alone.
Some people solve this through
***
or parties
or drinking
or wealth
or online chat rooms
or military service
or church
ect, ect, ect...

Me?
I just jot stuff down
and pretend that someone else will read it.

The only coffins i know of
that are built for two
are called mass graves,
which are often frowned on
but somehow
easily arranged.
Oh,
and an added bonus,
i hear your family doesn't have to put up
with the costs for a plot
and a casket,
but that's probably only because
they'll be in there with you.

So Chinaski took down Hem,
eh Buk?
I could take your cardboard mask
anyday
because i know he's more of a paper tiger
than the commies hoped america would be.

I'm crazier than you
and i'm willing to bet
my pecker against yours;
if you win
i'll chop it off with a rusty cleaver
and we can braid eachother's hair
while we tape my pecker onto the tip of yours
and spray silly string and ***** into my wound.

So what you got?
Huh? How crazy can you get?

After all,
i think you died naturally.
I still got time in these bones
to walk onto campus with
a gallon of gas
and a pack of menthol cigarettes,
asking to *** a lighter.

How crazy
have they become?
And how crazy do you think
it will make me?

"That's not,"
matt was yelling
"your water,
ron!"
from behind my back.
"This is my
lawn,"
ron replied defensively
as i looked
down at
the ants building
"Yea, that's your
lawn, but it's,"
an empire under the
sidewalk.
"not your spigot!"

i looked up
"I don't take orders
from you!"
to see the clouds in
"Okay, but that's,"
the sky. they were
"not your water, ron!"
flat and streaking
across the
"YOU AREN'T THE BOSS,"
sky tonight.
"OF
ME,
MATT!"
i could hear
"RON, STOP USING THAT,"
the sounds of
"SPIGOT! IT ISN'T
YOURS! YOURS IS,"
traffic bustling to
"OVER THERE!
THAT IS NOT YOUR,"
and fro
out on
"WATER!!"
third
"YOU AREN'T THE,"
street.
"BOSS OF,"
i turned to walk inside
"ME!!!
!!!"
and am confronted with images of recruits for the Phillippine army being slapped and punched on the television i left on so it could entertain itself because it was making me too sick to keep trying to quit smoking.

What a strange universe
i have found myself in,
i can't wait to
leave it
behind.

It is spring time

(raining slightly)
i am twenty years old
and my parents have just separated.
I could tell lies,

(often i do)
but that urge has left me today
and so instead i will allow the truth
to say that

(in fact)
i do not feel so affected.
Standing outside
under a soaking sky

(this happens so much;)
i draw on a cigarette
to draw myself into question and exist

(i'm out of it so lately)
while i surrender my eyes
to the ripples formed by the rain
as they merge in puddles that populate
the plane of pavement.
I start to wonder

(often i do)
if each ripple is aware
of the others it affects,

(so much)
or if

(in fact)
the ripples are just ripples

(it is in debt of meaning itself)

Your room is not my room
(i really don't even know where mine is)
Yet,
i've been waiting,
working,
thinking,
walking,
hoping,
working,
waiting
for­ the moment when i'm here with you.
Now that i'm actually here
i can't let go of the fact that  i have to leave tomorrow,
and because of how much i've been waiting
working,
thinking,
walking,
hoping,
waiting
for this momen, i'm too tired to give you a proper last night
and ******* 'til that bus arrives
to take me back to my waiting,
working...

****, i'm too tired to give a **** about poetry.
Instead, i think i'll **** the light
and hope that one of these weekends won't end.

Your feet are bare; freed of your sandals
and my eyes fall to stares and glances
from their corners.
I want to look at you
directly.
I want to let my eyes
traverse the waves of light
that you exist as,
until all of you
has been
explored.

But this class is blood;
teachers speak of it,
and i can feel it misting the air,
choking out any pleasantries that i could express
that would warrant me
one,
maybe two
seconds
to drink you in.

A few seconds of sight
isn't much in a four week
summer class,
i think, though,
that after all this is over
those few seconds are all i will retain.

The introduction to poetry class,
English 106
at Oregon State is alright.
I might have liked
one
or two
of the things we read,
but all in all
it was just another english class
which shyed away from anything
that broke traditional form,
and only elaborated the folly of existence:
a belief that
a subjective object
could be
an objective subject.

Oh well,
it was a good way
to waste away
for four summer weeks
in hour and 50 minute
incriments
while i waited
for my life to mean something.
So i guess that
over
all
i can't complain about it
because at least the class
and i
were both worthless
and we could share that
together.

If i were
who i was
a few years ago
i might feel compelled
to write a poem
of Anger
at this whole Gulf Oil leak thing.
Being who i was not,
however,
i now think that effort would be a waste
as someone has probably already done so
who has more money
and better connections
than this college junior,
and i wouldn't dare impose myself
on another's intellectual property rights.
Plus, i know that
the current grumblings of mankind
are too quickly forgotten memories
once the next round of grumbling
begins again.
So instead i think i'll write poems
that celebrate the
collapsed,
bombed out,
radiated,
poisoned,
burned,
and decayed world i live in,
and leave the rest of you
to stake your claims
that the world is
falling apart,
and you are the first to truly know.

She falls asleep
in the driver's seat
of her car as
the light post falls
across the windshield
making my shadow fall
on to her face
(is that my nose;
are these my hands?)
I write these
lines
on
some phone
that isn't worth the plan it requires.
We have so many ways
to talk,
but communication
only seems to run
like a kitten.

The 21st century,
we made it,
but i have no ******* clue
what we made.
I only know that i
can't be
in this
passenger seat
as she sleeps,
but we can't stop *******
so
here
we
are.
Wanna watch us go?

No Wordsworth or
Keats or
Brownings tonight,
but Eminem makes me shed a few
as his rage is piped through
the blown out speakers.
I'm not supposed to let the battery
die,
but i'm also not supposed to let myself
die,
so neither of these obligations make sense.

I've already given the world
up,
bur for some reason
it holds me
closer than she does
when she's wearing my sweater,
smoking my cigarettes.

So tonight i can't sleep,
but i know i don't want to wake
anymore;
rising from a pillow
only gives rise
to a fall within me
that's deeper
than the breaths she takes
when i'm inside her.

There's a hidden history of suicides;
i hear that
thirty some-odd Koreans just joined the club
tonight, but someone
seems to have misplaced
my membership card.
Still,
i know where a few homeless men sleep
and i'm willing to be
that if i gave them
the thousand dollars left from my college loans
they'll show me the initiation rites.

Would she understand
if i went from being inside her
to being outside the universe
in the same night?

Do i care?
She's just another
American Redhead
who wants something i can never give,
(unceasing pleasure and adventure)
so i guess
the only reason i'm here
is that i can't promise
she'll be happy
witout me
(is that really my breath on the window?)

Somehow i want to believe that
this means more
than the apple tree
we're parked under;
more than
the trailer
she sleeps next to;
more than
the street light illuminating
her face
as gently sleeps
in the driver's seat,
and i
stay awake
and write
from the passenger side.

I've been told
to walk soflty and
carry a large stick,
so i tread among the silent,
blurting out
with a piece of asphalt
in my hands.

I like to keep them guessing.

My words now float
up
to space
and then down to you
in a digital prayer, while
my flesh streaks
down
I-5 with grass seeds
in my hair
and paint on my face.
My soul isn't to be found though,
but of course
no ones' ever was
so i can't lodge any new complaints
into our ledger.

I think of you
and i think of whales
and a spider
braving a crawl space
in an attic that may only hold
starvation.
We're all insane;
there is no debate
on that,
but i fear i might be
growing saner
as i lose things to say,
so i have started
not to speak.

Instead
i try correspondence with the wind
but i only recieve changes
in air pressure
as a reply.

This drove Dostoevsky
under-
ground,
but it makes me want to run
to you:
yes to bare feet
and snow
and the prospect
that something was actually waiting
for us
on that blanket.

Now the sun begins
to rise
but the billboard lights are still on
despite the slumber
of the theme parks.

Soon they will wake
and lines
will spontaneously form
out of forged courtesy
and habit,
but i will wonder
when i can sleep
in your arms
under
a January snow
again.

The fist flowers like
armagedon,
and i have no ******* clue
what that even means,

but
Jesus Christ,
I'm going for it.
This swing is coming for him
and i hope that
*******
doesn't duck,
or i'm probably gonna
fall
flat
on my face
and be met by
the speckles of rock
in the asphalt.

                Mid-air is like
                Mid-sentence
                and i'm just waiting


for some punctuation to
drop
like her high-heeled shoe
as she slides out of something more comfortable
and isn't thinking about
the poor sap in front of me.