Each song is like a bookmark for the book of your life’s memories.

Each thumping bass line, each crescendo and every change in voice tone of the singer makes you cognizant of a time in the past during which you identified at some level with the musician.

To some degree, the words are clearer now than they ever were; in other aspects it’s like viewing a piece of art with younger eyes.

Likely, upon first hearing the song you did not completely empathize with the message.

Maybe you envisioned yourself in their place, wondering what you would feel or do.

Often times, upon hearing a favorite song from days past anew, our cumulative experiences since last hearing the song have made it possible for us to appreciate the meaning.

Sometimes we’ve actually been through the same thing as the singer.

At this point it’s almost like having a psychiatrist there asking you how the situation made you feel.

It compels you to think back to the incident and contemplate the momentousness of the occasion.

It allows you to grieve alongside the artist, to work through the problems which persist in your life as a result and hopefully, under the right circumstances listening to music can allow us to remove the bookmark and turn to the next page.

Previous eras were motivated by mystical forces such as god or universal structure of being
(EXISTENTIALISM)
as well as morality and a feeling of putting others before yourself
(RELIGION?)
and these approaches to life led to advancements in society and man’s relation to nature
(TREES)
but the problem with capitalistic society is that we have only one motivation prevailing over all others
(***)
that is, the motivation to reproduce the productive forces through monetary exchange.
(MONEY)
This structure of society will ultimately limit man's aims toward maintaining the status-quo and
will stagnate our advancement as a species
(MICROWAVE DEVELOPMENT)
the only way forward for mankind is to end capitalistic production and free our minds.
(POPCORN TUBE)

Wo es war... ____

Eyeing one sticky handprint;
left behind--
another's form, whisked away before
I got there, just in time
with an issue

"Field" Nobember of 2012,
even though they don't print them in that month.

I had empty paper, a notebook. A story
at a ***** table.
I would write on top of all this,
thoughts of avoiding the mess
left, there, unwanted by others.

I have been wrong
in as many ways as I have been right
I have been wrong.

It's true, what Freud said:
                                           Wo ES war! [Where IT was!]
Wo war es? [Where was it?]
                                            Wo ich jetzt bin! [Where I now am!]
ES IST ICH [IT IS ME]
ICH BIN ES [I AM IT]
                                      I am here.
IT
    is Omaha,
                      and
in so many ways,
                              it wasn't. ______

I’m sorry your football team lost, state.
Maybe you should invest
more time and
focus
on the things within your borders
that make any difference at all.
Like the thoughts of a young man
sitting at his table
watching ******* all day
                                            waiting
for a woman
who knows what it feels like;
He worries so much
                                                    For
a country
that spends more energy getting
drunk
and eating bleacher food
than wondering
if there’s any reason to be
Anything
Anything
Anything
                                   ANYTHING
at all.

--You are like that man
                                   wearing red,
shouting at your tv
and cursing;              only
you are without an
idea.

And you'll be that way on Monday
and Tuesday.
You'll have a thought
of where to eat on Wednesday
or decide to have a baby on Thursday
and forget on Friday
while you're dancing.

But you won't ever ask why;
not even on Sunday, when you're
sitting in church
and thinking about Kansas City
Chiefs' scores
or whatever worthless *******
you people think about.

I'm *******.

However long ago the bluster shadows roll anew beyond my pale eyelids and out mornings aloud shouts ‘awaken’ the post—scribbled and crossed with meaning

There are words there are words there are words there…

But some remain obscured by others, however long ago the bluster shadows roll anew each bundled ***
of news we read one word: war.

There are words there are words there are words there…

War. Word. Word. Word, other word.

And we held hands in December of 2011, then said goodbye on the morning of January 2nd 2012, when the bluster shadows rolled anew beyond my pale eyelids the words there:

Love. Word. Word. Word, other word.

I blinked. Was on vacation with you, at your parents’ home. However long ago the bluster shadows roll anew, beyond my pale eyelids, and upstairs, outside, and gone was I. When there were words there, I blinked.

Word. Word. Word. Word, other word.

Nothing mattered anymore—not love, or war.

I’ll never try to read the future in the news again.

As few more days the bluster shadows of mind are rolled out on a bleak December of frigid interaction—another fifty years of human life—before I see you again in empty nothingness beneath my pale eyelids, without thought looming like a bomb plane, or chemical attack,

scribbled and crossed with meaning, shouts ‘Awaken’ the words of the past—

Laura. Laura. Laura. Laura. Laura, Laura.

There were --, there were --, there were --, there were -- there

Please don’t mind
my interpretation
of your fixation
on Others'
words to a
page.

Wires holding
limbs holding
folders holding
papers holding
words holding
contrived
meaning
tell me something
about the way
we see each other.
I need to know
if you want to hear
the tuition I paid
speak,
because I don’t
need to be tested
daily
for my ability
to read
when the message
you are sending me
has one real-world
application.

That application is submission.

We can't all be teachers
and you are mostly
spineless cowards
with no weapons
but breath
removed from heaving chests
of those who died
thinking
those thoughts
you systematically
rehearse.

I
kept saying “I’m just glad no one got hurt,” last night when
I crushed a car driving a semi.
Just about to sleep
on the road by the sugar factory in my hometown
when I heard a horn honking and people yelling at me.
Before I heard aluminum bend at once.
I recounted it to spectators after the fact--

IN MY DREAM--
it was this
yelling, this
honking
inDICTED the victims in my
mind.

That road was endlessly wide.

Their car could have moved enough to miss me;  they wanted to
get hit.

For the insurance, maybe.
Who knows?

IN MY DREAM
people get right out of smashed cars.
Below your driver’s side door giving silent, dis-
approving glances within seconds of your palm-
shielded face;

After it had started to get dark
I remember how my dad had
our truck down filling up
on the corner with
scraps of steaming
food.

I noticed potatoes
cut into halves and
fourths piling in and flowing through the broken
tailgate. I knew
where that truck was going:
back to the country.

Where I was told to park my truck and RUN. in-
stead of
crash into the city. Then I saw the insurance adjuster, ask-
ing him,
“hey,
how much will it cost.”

“Some

number that doesn’t surprise me.”

I walked to the corner, past a car
dealership which doubled as a
firework
stand
in the summer
when I was young
and still does.

Die Tuer ist geoeffnet und leer
Im Zimmer liegt Kopf um Kopf
Und Dunkelheit ueberall
Im Tiefsten, am tiefsten
Der Herzschlag, ich
Schlug, der Schlag
Durch die Tuer
Doch die Tuer ist schon geoeffnet
Und leer



[The Open Heart

The door is opened and empty
in the room lies head upon head
and darkness all around
in the deepest, most deeply
the heartbeat, I
beat, the beat
through the door
of course the door is already opened
and empty]

Go away
From yourself and you will find
Everything
And everyone will laugh
But you will know that you were
Wrong
And come back

chewing each sound
like a dusty paint chip;
they don’t sit well, dark, wooden stairways
wrapped around my throat, banisters
sherry carpet running down the middle.
trial steps, you buy with each motion
swollen bones.
“sturdy windowsills,” that’s true.
we peel off raindrops,
closing the canister.
i sneer outside; that sun oscillates,
with its blistering pirouette.
costume design left it naked.
yet, this sallow creaking in my attic
is
a conscious decision.
possession, not ownership.

Uniform- Bloc Party
"There was a sinking disappointment as we left the mall-- all the young people looked the same"

Bought for a Song

All we could ever buy was bought by someone from something
An apparatus of production so maniacal; how could we know
what made our fingers bleed?
It was the sewing and the apprehension our hands holding string
we sat down in the factory but shortly stood up to sing
something forced us, past the window, it was still early
our minds returned to our benches our selves were in the seams
and we laughed, when we died, but it was all in jest
we knew someday we'd give our lives so your dog could own a sequined vest.

The Dog

Your dog's a personality, it's so lovely I'm impressed
It looks so jaunty prancing there, alive its sparkling vest.
Now tell me Baps, who made it? However did you find a sequined silver vest to fit on your canine?

It's really rather simple--it's not even that smart
I bought my dog this lovely vest at the giant mart.

The giant mart? How daring! How intriguing, I declare!
It contrasts very vibrantly with his top hat and black hair.
I tell you Baps, he's precious, look at him standing there!
I can imagine him singing show tunes like the late great
Fred Astaire!

"Yeah, you're right" Baps said, the conversation lingered there.

And I'd like to say what else was said, but frankly I don't care.
I hate these *******' feelings, I don't resemble Fred Astaire.
I wish they take these things off of me.
Dogs don't wear underwear.

Only the imagined faces of spurned women let me ***.
So, talk to me,
let me feel you out.
With my eyes, I'm trying to tell
who's being rejected.

I watch stymied
laughters of the world.
They are momentary tragedies.
Halting
Hindi laugh,
silent
Asian laugh.
Poking each other in ribs
infused with ****** morrow.
Why do I surreptitiously laugh, aloud on paper?

Each diseased curtain
of sawed-pulp wafts gently on
my breath, through ink, away--
contained in incense clouds
from sandalwood shrubs
which rustled once
beside a child
whose mother
dipped in Ganges
her ceremonial robe
whet, with tears,
the appetite you have
tonight
from laughing.

Downtown, outside
my cordoned hallway,
other people cackle;
they laugh like Sheikhs.
They laugh like Mullahs,
                                           rolling copies of Qur'ans
held next to black cloth,
who ask us
"Have you heard the one?"

The bishops,
priests and
generals
lean over their broaching bellies
to hear described:

Crackling yellow flames cast shadows
on maps for weary pilgrims
with questions inside their heads
suspended on the moon-tides.
They sang in a circle, one.
Motives for allegiance
unraveled on the ground of man's
passion, now rotting, beside the
carcasses of camels
too meatless to eat.

In the once cloudless sky,
separated from the stars eternally,
they conceived of
pangs as great as loneliness
which laughter disguises.

Love, a painful, confusing torment.
of which
laughter never inquires
"Have you the time for me?"
although, every few days,
it should.
Running fingers through our lover's hair,
laughter tempts the intellect eternity to
conceive.
Constant fascination is
more bearable than death,
we dream.

We all need more
persuasion
to let go,
let leather reins pulled
taut behind vocal chords
snap free from our hands
in empathy for what
can't be said
and move our tongues aside
to shout
"Again! Again!"
through laughter.

No need.
It repeats, despite encouragement.
Arriving in self-addressed envelopes in your receptacle
                                                      ­ each year
                                                            ­                                                  
              ­                                                                 ­                                 on your birthday
waiting in the dark, crying:
“Open up!
                   Climb down
out of your body.
                                          Come laugh with me,
                                                             ­               between the stars."

If I come
to rule a small kingdom
and should be so picky as
to have you live inside
you’d only have to knit
for me a pair
of socks and hold
my heels
In your soft cloth.
I'll give you money and keys,
ensure
you won't be killed.
Or hurt.
I’ll learn what you need
when you are shy
or expect something in kind
for your time.
My ringed fingers fancy
walking up your legs. My tongue,
running between your thighs,
delighted.
But, when your toes curl, I don’t
know.
And you've removed yourself
by inches, from the ground which,
like me, bounds after you
desperate
to replace itself beneath your
lovely form.
I’d fall out of exhaustion
onto that throne, imagining your face
and your thin ankles midair.
But you’d soar on
past Evening
making the moon your own,
me your last planet
you my new star.
Take cash,
for these socks
which warm my mind.
These thoughts
climb into open doors
in my kingdom's only car
then drive away with you
on unbuilt roads
with plans appropriated
from taxes
on socks you knit.

Echoing inside
empty buildings bolted with
fall-ed trees, hollowed stones, were reverberating
hand pats. Clapping will go
on.
Mourning cries,
tears won’t echo as well; rather, staring
hand, clasping
shriveled hand
shaking and bouncing
off wooden panels,
fake storefronts.
Acts
incited
feigned appreciation;
palms crashing, esophagi grumbling,
bodies jostling
for view.
As a species, we watched our own performance.
There, bursts from imagined forces
generated sounds, echoing
an otherwise empty darkness--
a yet empty darkness--
through purview.
Voices and people:
gone.
Objects, unacknowledged.
Thoughts, acted on.
Contained by walls
illuminating anything there was
with echoes from voices
and fingers, flapping on impact,
hitting corridor materials.
Below trap doors, no surprises are
waiting.
Everything that could have been said
is permeating,
blissful
nothingness.

You have become like the specter of my youth
A knothole seeping deadly fumes
Surrounding me, embracing me
Leaving me intoxicated and defeated
In a pile of filthy belongings
Tethered to this pole of existence
Wrapped in disregard
Postmarked for the gates of Valhalla
Addressed to sirens of the flat rivers
And dropped at the feet of irreverent lovers
You are my memory and the end of all complacency
The beginning of a new chapter
In a volume to be published
Bound in leather
Taken from cows raised in pastures
Decapitated and sawed open
Removing vital organs from lifeless bodies
Supported by a hook
From which brain chemicals drip
And neurons fire
Through a convict with his blindfold on
Moist cigarette, dangling off his lips
Air breathed by love’s guillotined victim
Rattlesnake’s discarded skin
You take from me coconut’s milk
Fuel for foddering the future
And willingness to triumph in battle
I leave your kingdom
Hopeful for patronage
Seeking refuge, perchance amongst palms
Floating on what seems a sliver
In your filthy sea’s apathy
I bide my time, until delivered
Until my tawny encasings unravel

Not only he breathes
Millions do, and want to stop
Wishing co2 would fill each lung
Swallowing poison, inhaling fumes
Bringing cords into water
****** relics in piles
Belts cling to ceiling beams
Feelings etched into wrists, blown away and thrown
Before traffic from overpasses
Right now
He chose pills, antibiotics
They tried to pump it out of him
Pressing down his chest
They want to make him one of them
Beep… Beep…
Every limb restrained
September fourth, 9:42
Pronounced alive

You are such a nothing
a blank canvas
an etching
i squeezed onto my fantasy shelves
gutting the plans
to posses your Rorschach
ethereal squalor of meaning
and threw the world's paint
on top of you
absent,
transparent draw cloth
translucent and opaque at once
femme fatale, bejeweled betokened
breath
and plaything
i want to whack
a mole

Self-righteous being

******* crazy man, I hear you
It’s sad to think about it
What opportunities were available back then!
Insanity to forego the pleasures of flesh
Such reason is often demanded by choices
But to say what is better is not to question
Our existence
And why we’re here
Can’t be determined
As everything surrounding us quickly decays
And leaves in its stead a flaccid, moist eminence
Straight from the plane beyond
More despicable than death
And intolerable under pleasant conditions
Which never exist
For the world’s forsaken
And we’ve killed our king
Before he could ward off our enemies

I passed the homeless man again today
in the university library

He walked past me, and I
stood there, clutching myself

He wore a green striped shirt I wore the
other day, but it was wrinkled

I stared at the muted wall of foreign
television channels
you need headphones to feign comprehension
or imagine travel

I saw...
The Indians dance in brightly colored clothes
The South Americans advertise libido enhancers
and Europeans replay explosions in South-Western Asia
or watch soccer
Africa was just a dusty road with jeeps and pickups
and guns

I wore that wrinkled shirt I wore the other day
to the library

I walked past the 24 year old
watching the world go by
hugging himself
in this way that assures me
he, too,
knows loneliness

Five:
Chairs surrounded by one empty table
they too, free and unassuming
Empty.
Contents seized by ceramic tray of ash
bolster snow
inside; cold, hard wire support beams
--talking-- pass snow through.
Unseen pale ceramic-- butts, extinguished, moist
musty, odor-- silent, blanket
white, soft petals of
Spring between
wire spokes
of five good friends.

i’m sleeping on a pillow of doubt
every feather pressing through the seams
hours closing in on the moment i’ll awake
and remember what it means to think i see

A boy stooped in that lonely corner
saw in the vending-machine’s glass,
self-sufficient, weary eyes; less
reflective and gleaming than before.
--Do you remember the way to the car? Asks the mother--
the planes flew
and the trucks honked.
Each day, a variation of the past
when the boy stooped in that lonely corner
--and the man presses plastic numbers--
for what had come.

Youth’s bitter, tormented and forsaken moments
Linger on past their welcome
Freezing leaves with their wintrous foibles
Leaving nothing to the imagination
All is as it was back then
And pity is procrastination

My birth’s eve is enigmatic
A day I shan’t relive
Tugging on my piety
As the light flooded my eyes
Both have witnessed heave and **
Finesse and outright folly
As I stumbled throughout life’s corridors
Prodding walls with eager palms
I screamed out at perceived darkness
Then fell once more unabashed
This time further than before
Through the stony grasp of destiny
Into an incubation tub
Turning anxiously to and fro
My pupils dilate once more
As I part my lids, take light in
I reach to touch, to understand
And feel a plastic wall
But I dare not wonder where I sit
For my heart is renewed innocent
I wish to stay wrapped in this cloth
Until my body is dispossessed
Deteriorating in time and space
But my soul would be perplexed

Initially, a glistening syringe
Punctured our sullied vestigial
Denoting words withered and wispy
Also being barren, tapped as well as empty
That canister of pithy remembrances
Now outright, unique and unencumbered
Still
The torridly measly, meek and
Reflective dripping silver needle
Forgoes my waking-dream and other alibis
For fluids fleeting from us to
Be lapped up by the sun then bottled in the clouds
“Forever?”
…Yes, because time means nothing…
“So that’s where we are, when all they see is weather”
Goodbye to consciousness

Everyone has an idea
what music is
to them.
Still, with knobs tuning in
to different concerts within
variegated steel vehicles
that drive toward chagrining
clock radios on Sunday's dresser inside
disavowed hotel rooms with flashing, red
lights and sound
reminding us all
where we are—what for
a time we hold to be real.
But all concepts from shaking heads
forming to join a choir that sings
a hymn to 'here' and flashes,
in the face of fear
a light from stars beginning with one
collision, across time then
claps its hands in unison
with 'now'

Passed, tense
           Under the glass, we shone;
the windows, daring each of us to shatter, was my
           feeling.
But there we idled, I sat up adjusting my lap--
           unmistakably you inched back.
What air, bag, hallowed, spinning!

          We give gas and speed off collectively, until the light
Source leaps into the dying sun or mutates into red.
          Your mouth, inaudible above the unstifflable drone
of the exodus from the city-- the people rushing out, away
from what sustains them.
          The light, falls into position, bekonning, you coward.
          Passed, tense
          Under the glass, we shone;
and you were the heaving globus--
          nothing, but a tertiary object
          clumsily laden with meaning by
          the tides and orbiting bodies in
          the cooling sunlight.
          With your archaic gleaming
Who would have guessed
          that I would follow you to
         Saturnalia?
Why Cleave, me, useless, tire!

A Secret

I’m gonna say something to you that’s gonna sound crazy--
and you’re gonna want to walk away.
and you’re not gonna want to see me ever again.
But I have to tell you this,
because, in the past--
I let people walk away from me before I said this;
and I can’t let that happen with you.
I want to kiss you
I want to kiss you so bad, and
I don’t even care if you want to be kissed.
I wanna hold you right here
and rest my head on your shoulder--
‘cause in the same way that I’m holding you
you hold me,
and it completes a cycle of mutual affection that will eventually
grow into something bigger.
Something that I’ve always felt for you, but you may not feel for me
and that may sound strange, ‘cause I’ve just met you
but I feel this way for everyone that’s open to the world
that’s open to the possibility that someone out there may love them
more than they love that person.
You need to know that I love you, and that will never change.
If you want to ask me how I feel about you,
I will always tell you the same thing, in more or less words,
by repeating that I love you.
I love you--
and I love your body.
I love the heart that beats in your chest, and the feet that carry you
through the world. I love the hips that sway when you dance
and I love the eyes that make contact with strangers
causing their hearts to expand and contract rapidly--
I think you’re a wonderful person.
There’s nothing you have to do to prove that this is the truth to me
because I know that what I think
impacts the way I see the world
and if you weren’t--
everything I made you out to be in my mind, then
there’s no way you could change my ideas about it anyway
or regardless.
I will always love you, and I will always be in this moment with you
with part of my existence-- at this time,
from now on. And into the past, I will have always been aiming at this
moment-- to when I told you how I feel about you.
--
So we have here, the culmination of two minds; two trajectories
through the universe crossing at this point, and place, in space
and time.
--
They don’t cross forever. But, as far as I’m concerned, the duration of their
intersection is yet to be determined--
And that is where we find Freedom
is in how long we choose
to spend with people that are important to us.
And I’m telling you you’re important to me, and I don’t even know you.
So
:
:
:
KISS ME

You won’t believe it
We were together
If only in my mind
And it led me to try things
I never thought of
It’s exciting, at the start
But then I turned and you were gone
I fell on the floor!
Afraid to go on
And I backtracked, to a non-existent circumstance
When we were together
I jogged in the summer heat
Gravel crackled under my shoes
But I felt it through the soles
And the sun shone on us both
It won’t do that again
Can you believe it?

I’m throwing my voice throughout a corridor
With no one on the other end
A space empty and dark filled with my radiance and purpose
I’m here to entertain, my friends
I’m here to guide the tour
Each doorway leads to a lecture hall, a subject to purvey
Each window out is bricked and barred
With damaged curtains, worn by air
Dusty books and creaking floors
No sign you were here
Hourglass and broken microscopes
Scattered all around
Competition from the past
Tests the finest pupil’s skill
Unclear who will succeed

Weeding out the critics and choosing only yes men

Using up the meantime, awaiting expiration

A coffee table, with no legs

Rotting fruit and cigarettes

Large window, yellow Curtain

Filling in a blue lounge chair with subtle desperation

It won’t work, it’s over

I’ve uttered it before

This final time it’s sincere

I will have no more

A vase, a plant, a canvas

A wall, a couch an attic

A suit made out of plaid

Brown shoes, mustache

White shirt, grey hat

Suitcase

You hold my hand at a distance by grasping my wrist in two fists
and I swing my arm with determination, to swat the fly
that circles beneath your pupils
but it dips and swerves and palpitates in anticipation,
causing you to blink--
I wish your eyes stayed open
“slowly”
you said
“slowly”
I laughed and gave up
then sleep overtook me
and whatfor? a brief intermission
I was only really scratching an itch
for you.

The torrid slushing slosh and evening moondown temperature of green-boiled cauldrons
We drove—not we, just I
And, branches falling, found my way
Blind and in a roundabout
I removed my sheathened corpuscle
My metal encasement and violated the elements of fire
Sorrowful electricity and fate blots out all headlights
Those cares—those cars!
SORGESORGESORGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
You hold on, now
You keep trying
And I’ll be back

I hid beneath the cover when she left
smoke filled the black emptiness of my mind
and she was gone

Minutes, seconds and hours
Fleeting and innocent
Conveniently avoiding our grasp
They beckon to us
Separate us from our holdings
Declare war on our values
Alluring, provocative
Raising our pleasure
By supplying a deadline
A moment of finality
A time of reckoning
Reasoning
True love
Divided by passion

The way we treat each other is unparalleled

In the animal kingdom

We beat our chests and praise the relics

Our gods

Tell us what has become of the past

That we don’t see how we act

Things are mistaken in thoughtfulness

The moment

Passes us by and we wither to dust

The time is a useless excuse for action

And we wash it

Like a cloth

Walking past the playground at the park
in the center of my grown up city

I hear children, but do not look at them,
their parents’ eyes seem to glare at me.

As I carry on, earbuds infecting my head
their vibrant laughter derides my shady afternoons indoors,
the things my mother said.

Once I wanted to drink grape Kool-Aid, but my mother wasn’t home
and even though she’d told me not to, I decided to make myself some.

I climbed up in the cupboard and took the faded pitcher
then I took the translucent canister below, in which my mother stored her sugar.

I mixed the sugar and synthetic flavor with a knife
a cloud of purple powder rising up.

Despite the fragrant odor, I couldn't be sure I’d added enough.

After the ingredients dissolved, I was ready to drink.
I took a big boy, breakable glass cup from the counter and washed it in the sink.

I dried the cup and set it there, beside the pitcher on the table
But when I raised the pitcher up to pour juice in the glass,

my little arms were just too feeble.

The pitcher slipped, as I lost grip and everything got wet.
As I took white cloths to sop up what I'd done,

the Kool-Aid fell in torrid sheets from the table's edge into my mouth
as warm Summer rain did years later, inhibiting a game I didn't want to play.

The water falling was relaxing and sweet for me both times.
Each accident was my momental, purple rain delay.

No, we shall never live on
Thus, we are not crazy
Posthumously stated
Although, not so lately

Words quoted by those
Who ignore the past
Lines from prose
Which ignore final acts

“It’s bombardment
Contamination
Shallow, impromptu
Callous and sad”
So dismayed
Are the critics
At what they can’t have

Without a spotlight on them
Without a solemn reprisal
They tediously sip coffee
And watch in denial

“It will never work, it just mustn’t”
“It can’t be done, for it wasn’t”
Oh, I’m tired of these children
Their fathers and moms
I’m sick of this museum
Now then, let’s all carry on

These words aren’t anything
But blood, sweat, tears
Are closer to the facts
Each passing face and fading day
Bear down upon my soul
Sneering, reaffirming my mistakes
I laugh along, unwittingly
As laughter seeps from pores
And tear glands, and veins
Each fleeting moment
And memory
Bearing down upon my soul
As I smile
Because words don’t mean anything
And our bodies aren’t silent
With craters and harmony
We are celestial

Terrible illness
Anxious, irrational fear
Putrid malignance
Lack of warmth, sterile air
Earth nourishes her daughters

Plebians
Gentry
Plebians
Slaves
And gentry?
Kapital.
A story
For the ages
Of enlightenment
At bedtime
It can’t be heard in darkness
It can’t be seen in peace
Enclosure farmers
Your ancestors, my fair, European scavengers
We’re victim to this system
Hundreds and hundreds of years
You all drink lattes
I smell the fat burn

Rusted, thrown
                          Brown
onto the walls of
                          Subsequent
                         ­ Possession
We feel, blindly
Our tips rubbing plaster
and soliloquy. Dodging             meandering
                          despair from
torridly ambitioningly mild forms
of lower-
                          Back
                          A­rch.
You scallion, you
                          You
and yours.
                          Those shoes

Fissured seams-- shutter widens and catches
Black foreground on sky
Whirlpool current
Order
Yawning underneath
Swallows
Handel-- Cargo taken whole
Into those eager stomachs
Once more-- for all time
Greedy serpents misspend hate
With whips
Bloodying their subjects’ once dry mouths
Who offer,
with that salty ocean
Apéritif-- to quell nothing
Their meal won't be had

Being beloved must be pleasant
Depended upon yet carefree
What it must be like to deliver
Subtle nods, vague affirmations
Lacking regard of another’s interest
Seeing into you, from a skewed angle
Hoping to get recognition
While ostensibly unaware
Of the microbial ambivalence
Pervading the room from your eyes
Each morsel shared ‘twixt each
Whether intimate or scrupulous
Swept away with a shrug and a call
From a waiter and an ex
Like an invitation to despair

I want to end my life
In search of where to go
The subtle reverberations
Of faint murmurs from fantilion futile flagella
As if to escape their murky repose
Flap, furiously
At once distant, then endlessly so
From the warmth of what it must be
To be free; aye, lifeless
As if their yearning made it so
And our flagellum steered us true
But we're embedded now
There's only two things we can do