Picture yourself  taking the first of many punches
Picture yourself blowing out a few birthday candles
Picture yourself watching a doorknob turn with wide-open eyes
Picture yourself clutching a pillow and weeping
Picture yourself watching a ewe with a broken leg being shot
Picture yourself being guided by old hands who've seen war.
Picture yourself perforating a decaf coffee can
Picture yourself in doubt and guilt
Picture yourself damning a missed chance
Picture yourself gesticulating wildly and arguing about a parking ticket
Picture yourself telling a friend that you love them, and not feeling weird about it.
Picture yourself sipping the greatest cup of coffee you'll ever have
Picture yourself hand-feeding a small animal
Picture yourself shakily trying to appear like you know what you're doing
Picture yourself naked under a full moon
Picture yourself lost in a new city and loving ever minute
Picture yourself walking into a room and hearing everyone drop dead silent
Picture yourself roasting a marshmallow
Picture yourself looking down at a horrible injury that doesn't hurt yet
Picture yourself carrying a heavy load up a staircase
Picture yourself in an empty echoing room
Picture yourself making ceviche
Picture yourself illuminated by the blue lights of a police cruiser
Picture yourself staying cool and detached in front of someone you want to rip the clothes off of and make love to, right that second.
Picture yourself startled by a loud noise
Picture yourself cleaning something inordinately
Picture yourself in a boat on a river....
Picture yourself finding something funny, then feeling bad about it
Picture yourself remaining calm when a step-parent judges your choices
Picture yourself with the trappings of a more successful person
Picture yourself, standing in your best clothes, two hours after graduating college, drinking cheap malt liquor, on the balcony of a cheap apartment, beside the best friend you'll ever know.

Life is brutal
Life is brief
Life has got you in its teeth

A wave of nausea, not hatching in your stomach, but leeching the strength from your legs, out through your feet.
The sound of a slammed door has coursed through the air to leave an indent, an impression, in your shoulder and side. It echoes and bounces inside your fleshy cell, spurred on by the brushed drum of blood
and ticker-tape heart.
What a body.
What a carcasse.
Hear the clicking of thoughts through carbon paper to long-dead wood pulp.
On Endless rolls wide as your *******,
your ticker nails down the free, lively thoughts.
For two ticks in ten you'll capture a word that deserves a second and third glance.
This.... thing. This wholly unholy, sacred little jewel will divide it all.  
It's as good as a weapon.
But, to slip through fingers, land in mud and be buried; as fate would jump at the chance, a truth worse than fiction.
Everything is rushing towards an end; some end.
Spotting patterns in cycles in routines, like an amusment park ride with a thousand
spinning axles
pinning
branches of branches of branches down.
When you, in your little capsule or gondola, reach the end of the long arching journey, things speed up.
Everything's true shape is revealed in a blur.
Here we go, this is the end.
No.
This arrangment,  and exact shape of whirling arms, shall come again, and though it seems like you'll be thrown away, you'll crack the air,
leave a vacuum where you just were,
and whip-cord shimmy-shuffle back to the center.

Will I remember the reminder?
To turn on my brain again
I woulda thought I'd be kinder.
Dead red-eye at the day's end

Leave the silver in the sink
Let the dishes sit and soak a dream
Spot the terror in your rearview
So far closer than it may seem

Spot the drips drip dripping down
And I'm speaking like a black-white clown
Full of thoughts, but they're in your voice
Nothing better than a broken toy

This kid is churning like a big machine
Just like a cheetah on a T.V. screen
He's just an elemental, mental boy
Iguana man: search and you'll destroy

Make up a letter from the magazine
Pair of nail scissors and the short clippings
Nothing so near and dear and true to you
as how familiar smells the duct tape glue

You know nobody told the bumble-bee
And now you know that it was news to me
Strung out coyote stepping off a cliff
And he could fly except that he's scared stiff

You know I'd like to change my name
Into the curlicue, ampersand
So that I'll always stay an inkblot stain
Until the books all rot and turn to sand.
III

Pull* "The dog says: 'Bark'"
Pull "The cat says: 'Meow'"
Pull "The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says:......

The human says: 'I can understand that.'
                               Sternly command that.
                               shear and plow and smelt and can that
                            
                               I can make a plan
                               to catch and **** and roast and feast
                               on that hard quill and bristle beast

                               And I can stain his image on the living rock
                               no, not to mock
                               But to remember what feats we drew
                              up from ourselves
                               As the javelins flew
              
                              My hands are clever
              They chip the stone, and scrape the wood,
                      and wind the sinew

             My tongue is cleverer still
             My words are the creeping shadow of my  thoughts
             And just as a shadow is drawn along behind,
                     and stretches in the late dying sun
             And snaps to attention in the noonday swelter, to heel,                                                  obedient
­             My words precede me, and linger behind, and snap to my side to attack
             And defend
             And manipulate

             For well you know, dear reader
             That words move men to move mountains
             They can drive him to brave the tusks and teeth
              And reward him with praise, as the fire flickers against portraiture
             Of a hundred beasts
             Deadly, proud, roaring
             And in the end, delicious.

            How splendid am I
            To suss out basic truths
            From straight-line scratches
            In the dirt
            I can learn the rules
            of all that ever was
                            And to learn, is to understand,
            is to become unfettered
            
            I can cleave, dissect, *****, inject
            And figure it all out
            And learn from a loosing bout
            
             Every monster brought low
              will be investigated
              To see how we can end him easier

Until the last monster
Is man himself

The restaurant where I often eat has a raw cinderblock shell to show the world
It was painted a long time ago, when a new owner bought it out
It was meant to beautify, it didn't work
But I guess it's the thought that counts.


On the East wall, near one corner, is a rectangle of thick white paint
in a field of grime. Always fresh, always clean.

It is marred by a series of looping black slashes.
Stare at them for long enough, relax the muscles behind your eyes, let them slip out of focus
And you'll start to see letters
In the dipping and diving bands of black.
It's writing
An alien calligraphy
People as woefully uncool as you or I weren't meant to decode it

There is energy in the strokes though.
It's a performance frozen at it's moment of completion
You can see velocity, grace, excitement, a little fear, and a deft, darting contempt.
All of these things in the broad and narrow ribbons of paint.

When I'm in the right sort of mood, with a full stomach and a lazily sunfried imagination, with the heat from the asphalt making things in the middle distance quaver,
I can make out the dim shape of the artist.
See where they stood, the sweep of their arm
the turn of their head, wary of witnesses.
Days in and out, it goes on.
Bare white one day,
blackened, besmirched, beautiful the next.

The snowy rectangle grows thicker.

Why the owner never stakes out his restaurant one night, I'll never know.
Why the artist doesn't venture beyond that one little pen, or choose a new wall entirely
will remain a mystery, probably for all my breaths to come.

It's like some mad story penned by a poor, gibbering lunatic.
Each is doomed to a war neither can win, and neither can lose.
I bend double I'm laughing so hard

They take it so seriously.
But then, don't we all have our petty conflicts?

A good friend with a basset-hound face is on his feet
The rest of us are weak
as newborn puppies,
from the late hour, the numbing glory in our lungs
But, mostly from laughter.

This young man is a connoisseur of altered states, an apprentice butcher, and one of the chosen few who breath music in and out effortlessly
And he's preaching
Prosthelytizing

Three minutes before,
he had been happily day dreaming
Three feet from the floor
with the ****-tube beaming
happy
simple
moving colors

The man on the set shows us how to stir-fry chicken
Our mouths water, but we're content to sit.

But with the fire coming up that glass pipe
and setting his boiler to churn along feverish
He caught an insight
or it snared him, like a spiderweb across a peaceful hiking path

On his feet
He was beginning to see connections
And had to share them with someone
Now

I'm a limp doll at this point, fully immersed in the body-high
Thoughts are glacial, movement glacial

Oh, my friend.
You're talking to the wrong audience
We can't hope to see it as you do.

But he keeps on keeping on.
And tells us a thing or two.

Cooking
He says
Is like ***.

As our laughter dies down to a dull roar, he continues

The speeds and heats and intensities can all vary
to give you countless subtle differences.
But the true constant is care
Loving attention to the finest detail.

His brows furrow, his toes test the fibers of the rug
and he glances back up, and I imagine a podium in front of him.

Or maybe it's like Jazz. He says.
We learn, or glean out, how things are supposed to happen
But in the moment, the twanging instant
Beautiful things will themselves to exist
and they defy all well-laid plans.

I'm in a foul little funk called 'Living'
Sometimes the best way to cope with it
is not to cope at all
I'll take my ball
and go home from an unfair game
slip through a door, unlocked
with tumblers turned by a chemical key

It sets a tremor creeping up my legs
like new ice crawling over a window pane
it pecks and plucks its way back down my spine
furtive, like raindrops down the glass
or an overambitious child,
talked down from the swaying, voraciously growing twigs
at the top of the tree.

There are moments
No, this is not one
But there are moments, when I see it all stretched out
When the nagging feeling
that it's all some cruel joke
Plants its feet
and puffs it's chest, hands akimbo
like a comic book hero
to proclaim that, yes indeed
the world does love kicking you when you're down.

And you do realize
that you're working hard to make someone else rich?
Yes, I realize.
And you realize
that you're paid by the plodding clock-tick hour?
Well, yes. Of course.

So you're selling your life.
Minutes and hours, true.
But you ARE selling your life. Your sweat and blood. And your time.
Your TIME. The only thing you'll never get any more of.

Yes, I realize.

We will never laugh the same again.
We'll still laugh, deep and long, convulsive, a beast of its own mind in us, tickling out each particle of air to leave a rumpled heap of aftershocks.
We'll still laugh, but it won't be at once. It won't be as one.
It won't be like two happily nodding ***** users seeing the glint of the drug in the other's eye. Sharing something made better for the sharing.
Preeminently aware of every nerve in sweating skin brushing sweating skin.
We won't laugh like we did at the final snap of a strained, and fraying tether to the rest of the world.

We were laughing for want of something to say. Laughing to say what words can't. Laughing at the joy and absurdity of finding such joy in something so near and dear.

And we laughed out of more than a little fear.
So fearful of being laid bare, scraped clean of subtle lies and omitted truths.

We can still enjoy ourselves.
But it will never be that same fearsome, roaring, glorious unknown.

Poetry should no more feel like poetry than a magician's act should feel like a series of tricks.

The light from the streetlamps squirms it's way through a ***** windshield
Miles of that road-dust, old and new, takes it due portion of the light
grabs it, casts it all reeling off, diffused

But it's ok, because now we're here, standing outside a corner store, charmingly ****** and completely bulletproof.
It has a sign that says 'Yes, we are open' and a thick, oily padlock that says 'No, we aren't'
It's like a sickly smile and a kick in the shins
A corner store like any other, except for the sound
The bass guitar flexes like a circus strongman breaking handcuffs
And pounds it's all-conquering vibe through the walls of the basement, through the brick and mortar and sidewalk-flagstone
Really more symbols that actual obstacles
The drums are syncing well, sunk as they are in the earth
We approach and find a subtler, silver-tarnish voice, worming it's way through ***** and crack
It's a pawnshop guitar, sizzling like a hot pan
It bounces like a drunk off the brick walls of the stairs leading down
Staggers it's way up, to invite you in
It's deadened just slightly by the giddy, rapidly cooling bodies relaxing there
in the no-man's-land between indoors and out, smoking,
drawing burnt-atomized sophistication in.
We mount the top stair, great explorers regarding a mountain, and proceed to climb down.
Every eye looks up, carefully half-lidded, and bored.
But for an instant, every single one has a message squirm it's way through the dust: "Yes, I am open. Please think I'm interesting. Please think I'm worthwhile."

I'd pull a pratfall just to keep that smile wide and real
I'd pull my somersaults and dance a brilliant fever frenzy
I'd grab those carol bells and shake them in a brilliant peal
And no not anything you'd ever do could possibly offend me

I'll tell you stories, curl your toes with all delight or fright
I'll run through tall grass, hauling string behind to raise your kite
I'm in your thrall, I'll beg and crawl, and caterwaul
If I should think I've come ever so near to dealing you a sleight

I'll pull a pratfall
Because I'd rather be loved as a fool
Than not be loved at all.

Wrote you a letter but I wrote it
On the wall
You could come see it but I know you're not at my
Beck and call
I just came by here to recite it but I
Can't recall
But I came by so that should
Be enough

And it's enough well it should, be enough
And it's enough well it should, be enough

It all looks different from up here above
Street level
And I had to wreck some things to build it up to
Get this view
And now I see each conversation formed a
Full circle
With a dead center, no good reason, what do you want to do?

Is it enough, well I doubt it's, enough.
Is it enough, well I doubt it.

Let's find ourselves a little puddle
Dive on in and swim

Pretend to be big fish in
a little pond, such a fun game

But you know now each time it seems to always
End the same.
With me dry and you dripping.

Take a step back.
As a matter of fact.
And reconsider.
What you want out of love.

Though when I tried to do likewise
You took it quite bitter
I'll be the bigger one
But I am no babysitter

I'd like to slip a little bit of me
Under the door
And have a look around

You've got your deadbolts tight
Play risky with your light
And now it's all burning down.

Little glass soldiers
and their ranks swell
they fall in lockstep, clacking on the tabletop
and how many, I can't tell

Notes over the air
Loud enough to force a pair
Who want to talk
A little closer together

To be completely forthright
I have this kind of insight
somewhere between seldom
and never

I couldn't say, now, why I came
Except to watch the people dance
but from the corner, a loaded glance
and I forget my name

And I forget my name.

I
I have to look away
and I
Haven't got the faintest notion why I feel this way but I
I
I'll bet I say something wrong and all dutch courage gone and maybe I should stand and go or risk letting my strangeness show and staring at the bartop wood and didn't notice when she stood and heart is ramming through my chest and barely felt her light caress and eyes **** up to catch a dark pair staring back at me and I
I
Forget
There's only her
And she's smiling back.

Billy awoke one day to find he was still human.
This shouldn't come as a shock to most of us, but he'd bedded down
the night before
like a kid for Christmas morning.
He'd paid good, bad, and mostly clean money
for a bad of magic
and steadily spooned it into himself.
He'd reeled and wailed, giggled and shook
limbs and fingers, tongue and teeth
formed cryptic, crazy angles
as he unraveled and wove himself
into something new.
But he awoke once more, staring at the same craters in his ceiling.
No stronger, no uglier, no freer than he had been.

Doc's got a hammer, and Doc's got a pick
Doc's got it aimed right at the problem bit
Doc's got needles, and they're holding you down
Doc sticks you twelve so you won't make a sound

Get your mind right.
You've been thinking wrong.
Get your mind right.
In the bare bulb light

Nurse has some cotton, and she's dabbing your head
Nursie's so proud, now she's feeding you bread
Nurse has a figure and she's reedy and tall
Now you're thinking seedy, and that won't do at all

Get your mind right.
You've been thinking wrong.
Get your mind right.
In the bare bulb light.

To fit a different mold
Was your fondest wish
To have and hold

To be the red sore thumb
Forever clapping tongue

And every little child of the day
Will know you, Name and Face

And every little child of the day
Every muttering head of grey
Will know you, by Name and Face

Press, your hands against the glass
Your fingerprints upon the screen

Be, the flawless fantasy
As styles go from rough to clean

And every little dripping note of praise
Will be swept up in a haze
A halo, round your head

Every little dripping note of praise
Every passing latest craze
Will stoop and scrape
So far down low

Hold, your lock of famous hair
A dream you'll always keep

When, its more than you can bear
Out the window shout: I am unique

For the hardest part of living out the day
Finger bone and nose to stone

Is knowing

You are one of millions

And will never be alone