Dreams peeled upwards like planted weeds
Grasping to touch a saffron sky
Straining under lasting languish

These dreams, it seems, awaken to the day,
To repulsion of repetitive repetition of tarred thoughts of
Repelling miles away from you
You who, although now, curl inward towards one another
-another moment of
disillusionment, thriving on salted skin

Bruised spaces
Break the backs of arching bridges:
it seems, these dreams of parking lot birds fly never over, never above.

Waken to the sound of drilling teeth
Awaken from an anesthesia slumber
Shaken senses of novocaine

Every morning
undresses and dresses the hum of
Slumbered thoughts,
Who murmur of arising amber sun

beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my mouth speaks back to me with
crooked picture frames on walls, a fraction off beat
microscopic holes in my vernacular atmosphere
from one too many aerosol words,
of not thinking before spraying toxic

beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my thighs speak back to me with
tallies marked on skin
a sciatic nerve pleading for no more flexing of
car wheels tracks on waved sand

beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my feet speak back to me with
pinching plastic between nails hammered heavy into
figures blinking upon flat bottomed arches
pliant pleading for weightlessness

beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my stomach speaks to me by
stuffing breadcrumbs down a jagged trail
of the small intestine, appealing

beautiful thing
i scream to my body
but my mind speaks to me with
thinking thinking thinking
that thought has no weight
so weigh on me

Many wake
with the sun well risen.

Some
find themselves
awake in the dark
turning over into sleep
until the light.

Still others,
night cast from their eyes,
go outside
into the black
to wait
and watch the colors come.

The sun on the horizon
is a shadow,
bent forward in time
by the eye lens atmosphere,
the light of it
sent to greet
the waiting awake,
heralding another
new living.

The smoke before the fire,
comforting the cold.

2-[[4-[(7-Chloro-4-quinolyl)amino]pentyl]ethylamino] ethanol sulfate

Sulfate- dry collision with salty white plaster, plaster walls, my plaster teeth in the palm of my plaster hand, the same palm you touched nervously with your fingertips, when your translucent skin showed we have the same blue veins, you with no love line. I’ve ran into walls, trees, dead ends, bursts of hail, but worst of all– you

Ethanol- black liquid gas,a nozzle in my car engine, fracked through my exhaust(ion) burn my esophagus like sweet ginger ale gin, double chin. I’m drunk, so I’m seeing double. Re/frac/tion.

Ethylamino- alcohol: a drizzle in a rainstorm, i can’t contain myself, exploding inside a glass bottle. a defective windshield wiper, reprocessing my words: “ethyl and coke tastes like cough syrup”, I say. either or, neither will help me.   ethyl as fuel is not safe to drink
ethyl as alcohol is not safe either. swirled away in a plastic whirl.

Pentyl- discovered in a collision of ultra violet light with argon, noble gas. overdose symptoms include convulsions (check), drowsiness (check), headache (check), difficulty breathing (check), vision problems, (check). But not for the reasons, or for the causes, I’ve listed.

Amino- building blocks to a withered corn husk of my body. 9 essential amino acids. Find them in your grocery store: egg whites, lysine in sunfish, cod, dolphinfish but please, no mercury. Maybe I have 1 left, maybe 2, after each labored breath entrapped by porcelain walls, cool on my forehead, warm on my hands, dampened dew on fingertips with pressure on my skin, sewer raindrops on my nose, now i’m so good (to you) I can upheave my 7 other amino acids on demand. No more dew on this fluorescent skin, I've always been too artificial to be compared to nature

Quinolyl- you are created by the removal of one hydrogen atom. I am created by the induction of two. This is how we are similar: exposed to light, we change. Your ancestry proceeds you, impurity in a chemical science, derivative of quinoline, which is a derivative of coal tar. you are an dye, a resin, parasites feed on your smell. I lust on your parts, **** out your solubility, desecrate your elements. I own you, don’t think you own me.

4- one milligram less than what disintegrates on the tongue's bitter perception, each night

Chloro- back stroke, breast stroke, my favorite is dead man’s float. inflamed skin, cracked elbows, an allergy

7- years since you’ve been with me, although I own you, you do not own me.

4- exponent of the previous, the total sum of pop art pills by night’s end. sometimes I forget.

2**- the number of techno-colored candies in the morning

A body is made up of chemicals

a swollen tongue, thick coat of sweat
thumbing the inner cheek of a half eaten peach
festering the breeding of rotten thought
fruit flies

Shuddering fountain
flies nervously, leprechaun
slumbering oyster

Living in a car
in New York City

I hide underneath a tablecloth
which substitutes for a blanket

It is quite uncomfortable in the backseat
with that bump in the middle
pushing my lower ribs into my gut
as I lie on one side, and hide

Though so much better then the
cardboard box with news-papered roof
I once pretended, could protect me from
the rain

If only I could figure out the
alternate side of the street on
which to park

You wonder
why I wiggle
so much
why my legs
bounce,
and my hands
twitch.
Truth is,
my mind
can't slow down
It doesn't know
how to take a day off,
its far too good
at tormenting me
more and more
with each
passing second.

-JRM