What is time? Who invented it?
This made-up thing having some need to
emphasize a visual and audible record of
each passing second, minute and hour of
every' single day and night? Inspiring the
human creation of automated mechanical
clocks of every shape and size, ornate or
plain all in a synchronized pace that matches
with the precise rhythmic beat of our own
human hearts.

Devises that dictate and define our days
and nights, tell us when to eat, sleep, pray
or be somewhere. These invented Machines
that created human stress and anxiety, and
control our lives, while all the other living
creatures of wing and paw on this orb Earth
live well, mostly unfettered lives in balance
with the simple rising and setting of the sun,
having no compulsion or need to count or
record the seconds, minutes or hours and
or be somewhere. Just living in the moment.

If you get it, you lost it.


I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)


I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)


A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say


This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task

My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.

I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.

The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.

I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.

No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.

I swim endless in despair
So that I do not drown in it.
I breathe only to breathe.

I am suspended in sunlight with no warmth.
I am surrounded by notes that make no melody.
I fumble, falter, fail.

Heavy as a raindrop whose cold
Penetrates deeply into loneliness
Is the air, the light, the lingering.

I forget too much.
I remember too much.
I am too much, and not enough.

A shallow pool is that in which we swim
A void wants only to be filled.
Misery takes us all.

Retreat to your blind advance
Advantage over anothers civil rights

There they go
Only one country to be

All liberty says now
In her gentle Psalm
Is
All around

We waltzed into eyesight
Of some flowers
And wet grass together

Two get to a picture perfect
Piece of paper
Yet an entire generation
Still missed the beat

Homekey buildings get demolished on purpose
Otherwise they wouldn't be off limits
And we would have our constitution

That's Watergate
Real estate value
And bondslavery notes
Being held

Within that book of language
Liberty is silence


At the language level you are allowed
Within this democracy of the people
You are held to testimony and thus
Entered into the legislatures diligence
Of historical record, due process shall
Be provided to me upon my request to
Redress this government
Appropriating the funds from your
Department to the street where my
Residence is

In the violation of my civil rights the
Injustice is served upon me daily by
Those holding office on my behalf, as
I am forced and capable to address
These matters without loss of diplomacy
The civil discourse is hearable and not
Counter to the reintroduction of my
Civil rights


As an American unhoused and having
To face the elements
Any further inquiry than that is irrelevant.  As
Such the farmers almanac tells me today,
Mild, wet California is about to be unloaded
On my head.  Now, not being allowed a
Tent due to the supreme court’s opinion
That no such quarters are necessary
For Americans to survive the enterprise
Of California’s real estate market, the
Question remains as to the death toll
We are preparing to accept on behalf
Of your oath and laws governing homekey+
Until May.  I understand these laws
Have been brought forth under no duress
And our founded on a constitution?

Being found in america
Is American

I opened a letter addressed to no one
And found a wet map of my own grin.
The postmark said “Somewhere Between”
And the ink ran like a guilty priest.

The ceiling hummed its usual sermon:
  “You are a question your mirror asks gently.”
I nodded, chewing on glass-handled scissors,
Waiting for the floor to finish deciding its shape.

A horse walked in, dressed as my therapist.
She whined,
  “Your trauma wears a wedding dress.”
I asked for a refund
  And received a gun filled with sleep.

Behind the curtain:
  Someone’s mother melting into a fax machine,
  My ex spelling “forgiveness” with her teeth,
  A child screaming “I’m your future, father!”
  While drawing on a body bag.

I stood there,
  Drenched in six contradictory versions of myself,
Clutching a plunger and a birth certificate.

Someone whispered,
  “Your voice is a privilege.”

And all my response to that was:
  “Shut up louder.”

I was standing in the fields one day, like I usually would be doing, legs deep in grass, the wind nudging my ears with things I hadn’t yet lived. The sky above me was in a shade of grey I couldn’t name.

  “The weather is beautiful today.”

That’s when the horse appeared.

He jumped, upright, landing with the brutality of a ballet dancer, although he shouldn’t know how to. He had only two legs, thin and humanlike, and one of its molars, impossibly large, vibrated, producing a melody I couldn’t recognise, yet somehow remembered.

It leaned close. His breath smelled like burnt tobacco and languages. Then it said:

  “But Aleksejs…”

Terrifying in its intimacy.

And just like that, it was gone.
No sound. No dust. No hoofprints in the grass.

Nothing.
  Nothing.
    Nothing.

I stood there, frozen.
Not cold.

Later, when I woke up (though I couldn’t say for sure when the dream began or if it had ever truly ended or even started), I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself:

  “Was it me he was talking to?”

Frankly, no one answered. But the top left corner of the ceiling pulsed once, lightly,
And for some reason, I took that as a yes.

I am assembling
a new gray tweed
suit. The plodding,

solitary elephant is
wandering on a dark
road. I am not an I.

Pinocchio is missing
an arm and speeding
in a big truck. I am

an eye that floats
overhead, smaller
than a pin-point,

nothing really.
In the murky
night Pinocchio

hurtles toward the
idle elephant, but
swerves at the last

moment, then I’m
wearing the tweed
suit, even though

it’s missing a
sleeve, and all three
of its ivory buttons.