In this place
chopping so much your hand cramps,
so you have to hold it by the wok
for five minutes before it unclenches,
is something to by proud of.

In this place
college students scoop and cook
to pay for school,
or pay off school,
instead of applying what they learned,
which cost them more than money.

In this place
the line never sleeps,
you are Pavlov's dogs
trained to a bell.
And if you are unlucky enough
to be put in the kitchen,
you'll find it worse than Hell.

-on seeing Yves Marchand's pictures of an
abandoned miners island near Nagasaki

What will remain of us,
industrious ants,
when all that we work for
comes to an end?

A dusty cupboard
in a murky corner.
Two empty bottles,
one for wine, one for apple juice.

No trace of our names.
Gone are the honours.
All that we strive for...
just thin air on an empty shelf.

It's peace again,
peace at last.
It's what we deserve,
our just reward.

some kind of permanence
a ****** in the
woods

slow decomposition
tender restoration

it's place a drift
as if
coalescence made it
float through trees

within. the charcoal maker
the makers wife
and scurrying creatures
with feet and paws

without. smoke. wisps of
first industry leading to
harvested piles seasoning
by breathing clamps.

points of turf covering
designed stacks. an inferno
strangled by it's master
briar hanging loosely
tasting tobacco while listening
for betraying crackles and looking
for beacons of yellow showing as cracks
in dried earth.

fire here is burning money.
burning time

they have none to spare

behind him stacked in sacks
charcoal dry and ready for
Jack the cannon maker.

where finally the fire suppressed by
the maker would burn in forced
air with anger enough to
melt iron. Blast the sky with
sparks and toast Jack's leather.

in the woods the smoke rise and fell
while the master
vent
seals
vent
seals

the whispering clamps
in a clearing.

32,000 feet above the lot of you and examining the strands of cloud, looking down and wondering just how safe I could be.

When can you start to discount coincidence as no such act of random encounter,

Instead start to look at fate and decide that this is a risk that needs taking...
///
Cutting through the grounds of sacred legislation and mystic men in Brooks Brothers suits,

So far from Hollywood, but matching 1929 *** appeal and romanticized images of gilded ghosts of America.

How do you keep all these agendas upon the people who claim to be the freest on Earth?

You making your living on collective barriers—

Has never stopped me from taking to the skies and leaving my confusion in the clouds,

All my worries absorbed by the cold cotton ***** I have no option but to soar through.

Dontcha just hate trying to finish a poem?
It's always like there could be just a hint of this, a dash of that;
too much seasoning, not enough time spent simmering;
did you use the right amount of ingredients;
was it tablespoons or teaspoons?

Dontcha wish you could just pluck one out of the freezer:
One wrapped up in a neat little package?
Leaving it on the stove-top to thaw a little,
before heating it up at your timely convenience?

I wish I knew when these **** things were done;
Wish I could stick em in a microwave, clock in the allotted time for a work like that to be well-cooked and consumable--
Wait around zoning out to the droning tone of the toasting note,
then awake from my spell by the sweet dinging of completion.

I'd take that steamy sucker out of that commodious kiln
in such great haste I can barely hold it in my hands!
"Boy oh boy does this one look tasty!"

I'd sit down with my necessary utensils and have a go at it, chewing thoughtfully and enjoying this wonderful piece I have prepared by myself for myself--and without all the hassle and wasted time
spent slaving over books and pages and pens and inspirations!

But ****;
Nobody likes poems cooked out of pre-made packages;
they're a little too rubbery, a little too mushy, a little too bland--
and worse off they were made by the assemblyman's hand! (or claw).

Nobody likes their poems coming out of pre-made packages;
They ain't nothing like the real thing.

has been reduced to a mere
facebook status, a tweet, or
a battle of  likes and followers
crumbling, succumbing to
the pressure of creating

something

Theodor and Max would be sad
mad about how i treat my self and
my Art, as industry and enterprise
would use me as a commodity and

the object of Art is objectified

One half of a crying moon sat in the June sky
An uncertain state of silence that I hate
A swarm of red lights from some farm device
Blink fiercely with a hive like intensity
Miles of metal fences leaning lazily
Held together by sandbag security
Could have been knocked over by a summer breeze
Unplanted fields yearning to be tilled and seeded
Punctuated by bare bones buildings and
Stark steel structures pulsing with electricity
Armies of insect swarm the tall lamp lights
Highways become rocky roads
Rocky roads ride out into dirt paths
Then circle back to the gravel covered tracks
Becoming the grey running highways
Nature and industry the strongest cycle
The strangest and straightest signifiers
Of nature’s outliers we call humanity

Seven lyre birds sang each in turn a tune
doing their tonal best to hone
the reproductive skills akin to a master
in the art of Japanese calligraphy
but all failed distracted by the majesty
of a high-definition sunset on playback in perpetuity.