If she gathers enough sticks,
she'll be able to get the fire going real nice;
enough to see her hand
in front of her face for a change.

She's been scratching around in the dark,
wide-eyed and ravenous,
feeling the ground for wood
for what seems like hours.

Her fingers start to blister and sting
from the friction and the grinding
of her begging and pleading
for just one measly spark.

It's been like this since that day
when everything was still pretty nice
in her podunk town where she
was known as the black sheep.

That day, that day, in late April,
when she raised her hand up
stuck out her thumb and
blotted out the sun.

She woke up with dirt under her nails
and pulled a lock of hair out
that was starting to mat.
She went to sleep with dirt under her nails.

She went to sleep hungry
and now she chews on anything that moves
in the umbra that couldn't be too far
from where she used to live.

Dead leaf blankets-
"Are the trees still alive?
What did the forest smell like,
sound like, at high noon?"

"What were colors?
Light-lovers and their shrieking tears
filled with nostalgic longing for
magical, pretty un-black; privileges".

Sanctum in the murk.
She walks tonight, but not far.
"I am the mother of the moth,
and the sudden ritenuto".


) o ( ●

I. centipede:
-
They come from both directions and it doesn't take long
for me to realize that they've figured me out.
My mind was fast, but not as swift as the hands
of five-hundred outreaching hands; one angry crowd.
Grabbing at limbs, low and high, they don't waste a second
before tearing me in every direction; at least the cardinal four.
My mind takes flight, leaves fancy, but not before
I get in one last swear, and one last spittle in their faces.

II. snake
-
Tail and head aren't in sync this morning, I tell ya.
No rattle, no bite, just a lot of traffic and heat shimmers
in the one place I don't need to be today.
The people here act like they don't know me,
but they still turn their noses up when I empty my mug.
The waitress answers when spoken to,
but just stares in the time in between wheezing breaths.
I've got to get out of this county, this state.

III. scorpion
-
Ronny hasn't been on a roof since a couple years after we got married.
He wrapped his ankle in some gutters and took a spill;
his thigh popped right out of it's socket and he just dangled
like some kind of prize in one of those crane games.
Doctor says he can still have kids, and I know he can still get it up
from how he watches that ****** **** on t.v.
But he wont touch me; hasn't in fifteen months, I've counted.
He's in for a surprise once the settlement clears.

IV. lizard
-
Wallflowers never get anywhere with their mouths sewn shut
and I cut my stitches well before my teens;
I got what I needed and I made sure of it.
But there is something to be gained from
basking in the naivety of youth and ignorance.
Trouble doesn't set in as well, and boredom comes
as some kind of waiting period, rather than the norm.
These bars are a reminder of why they don't let me make the rules.

V. toad
-
Invulnerable, incontestable, unphasable, archetype.
I listen for the right words to drop the shields,
but I'm only met with the silence that accompanies
asphyxiation through means of wet wax paper.
The touch of phantoms tingle along my skeleton's core
telling me the time for lollygagging has long since passed.
Stand up, giant, you're running hot and the moon
keeps calling out, "follow the lit road home".

Lost in the fumes of a cloudy exhale
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water.
My remains are scattered somewhere
between boyhood and gutter trash.
The present is hardly of concern
when the blankets of mud offer such astounding
silence.
This swamp was flooded with the prosperity of quitters.
-
The face of the street I grew up on
has been radically warped and distorted.
Leave a good thing to the elements long enough
and you’ll see it begin to degrade.
Dust gathers and mold begins to creep in
from the moisture lingering in the air.
It happens to our childhood toys
just as easily as it happens to the people we know.
-
Everything still holds the same shape;
the same structure that casts a shadow in memory,
it’s just that now the cosmetics have worn off
and you can see the tired lines start to show.
You can hear the creak of arthritic wooden steps
to front porches where old kin with liver spots
sit and drink a shared Ice House 40 oz. while spitting into the wind.
Cavities from a candy coated childhood.
-
There are strangers in my old home,
that place where my uncle lives
surrounded by VHS tapes, pictures of Brett Favre,
and reminders of dead cockatiels.
The biggest struggle is trying to recall
if he was always this way,
or did it take a forty year dope binge
for the hoarder to finally stir?
-
I wrote my name in the sidewalk at the foot of steps.
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water
and check under the bushes for garter snakes .
My stomping grounds have been wiped of footprints
and grandma’s violets don’t come in very well anymore.
They cut down the walnut tree, and got rid of the porch swing.
No time for whimsy, no time for strays.
The cicadas will sleep for ten more years, ‘til summer.

ambiance amplified and gravitas dead inside
drink alone, danger zone, shot the Jekyll, saved the Hyde
cut my seat belts so my doors wouldn't beep, though
I creep with a fleet of conceited banditos
to the park, skip some rocks, play the shark, shuffle birds
find the narc, go and knock, make it bark, no one heard
a million reason to stay awake wide-eyed tonight
ninety-nine *******, one problem: you're in my line of sight
black & decker woodpecker, fur-trap chop with my power-drill
trill wagon, cool dragon flagon of honey mead on the window sill
unseen fiends mean for stones out beating streets to smithereens
you only live nine times: shake the earth, **** the silver screens
pair of sweet, pear-shaped tweets for you to meet in the suite,
they can show, you can see that they know how to greet
enough throwaways to keep boost mobile open
enough light reflecting princess cuts that they think my neck is frozen

You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.

What glamour could possibly be gained from this untrusion
hiphiphappy happy happy days
all the live long [(sk-ii-p-ii-ng---sk-ii-p-ii-ng)]
she should've shifted shape and shelter
_______
now I lurk, thick-in-the-murk
underneath
-
a witches brew of acrid broth
quicksand | quicksilver
dwelling under porches (lucid) dreaming
tapping out thoughts with a six letter alphabet
we gather in the quarries: VIOLETMASS
underneath the newly linen husk of vapor
underneath the ethereal 0eye0
counterclockwisemarching --- total separation
------
At first, it was my grandmother's embrace that shattered the veil.
It was July and the tulips were in bloom; red and yellow
    - like bold comic panel fire.
She had picked me up from the tilled garden ground and placed the
    okra seeds in my hand to plant all on my own.
It was before the yard was fenced in, and before her mind was cloudy.
    Before the alley was paved, and before the preacher was replaced.
In those days, I could escape under a blanket and afternoons
    were a thing to be reckoned in the eyeseyes of a lie she saidin the neyeght kindlingsprinwintefalummer when christmas when birthdawndaynoondusknight iiwithwhatwhichii crippled finger
when the time is slower and the eyeseyesiiis are right and the skeye is wheyete with the sclera of 'SCYLLA'  that hangs ever still in looming presence for iiii am the all-maker the breaker of thine ****** tonguu003....             NO REACH
FAULT
crumbllllllllllllllllllllll 000000 lllllllllllllllllllllllll
                                       ­ 000000
                                          000000
        ­                                    000000
                      ­                        000000
                                  ­              000000
--undo
0
6
1
6
00:.,-..
.-undue::
.:-
momma­=bogmama=mulch=lather
kruksog
..-.:*
..:
-.:
.-:-.:
--:
63­ 72 75 63 69 66 79 20 74 68 65 20 77 65 61 6b 20 73 61 69 6e 74
-
marchingmarchingmarchingmarching
esiwkcolcretnuoc
chant the wave abackISAY with vestigia((nge((l wings
and stoke the fla(mes)merize with-or-out gallant spree
THOTHTHETHOUGHTTHINKER
THOTHTHETHINKEROFTHOUGHT
HERMETIC
HERMESOCYLCONE
we sprinkle the drops of cymbal tonic downward
in the pattern so elegant so rooted upon )we(
the ones who kept the secret in our teeth
that was told to mercurio and passed on to ego
sheltered by cernunnos//squandered by that !B/A/S/T//A/R/D G/O//A/T¡
to mark the coming of that with nine heads
that with eighteen horns for eighteen years
that with eighteen eyes for BABYLON'S HAGGARD ****
that with fivehundredfortyteethththth
spit powder faith upon the squelching pest
let him see him
let me son
I am the strongest of the creatures
-
-
-
cellar door dribbledribble--
no more are words beautiful-
-
-
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
DONOTLET­THEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
D­ONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
THATDOGWITHNOLEG
THATDOGWITHCR­USTYEYES
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHNNYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHN­NYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEGODOUTJOHNNYMYSONSOHELPMEDOG
DONOTLETTHE­DOGOUTJOHNNYMYSONMYONLYSONWHOIKNOWSTILLLOVESMESOHELPMEGOD
THATDOG­TELLSYOUTHINGSABOUTMEIKNOWIT
THATDOGTELLSYOUIMAWHOREANDYOUKNOWTHA­TSNOTTRUE
-
-
-
;
UNDO
=oor

_
__
_­
----------------------
_____
underneath
I lurk, thickinthemuck
there''''''s bed for you
bed of you
bed of goo
bed w(h)eredog lay
licked clean
god in statue
no speak
not to me
maybe to the tip-toe man
but not me
knot anymhore
-
-
-
-
-
-
They told me I must go back to them, but I could see you later.
I saved the paper, the one you gave me.
They told me I could see you later.
They told me.
Dog told me.
Bless us.
Ysgramor.
         |
         |
         |
         |
         |
         |
-------------------
| r| o| o|t|s|
underneath
and I am sleeping
dreaming
feeding god

My naivety died with my father
at the bottom of Lake Shelbyville
when I was seven years old
and still losing little teeth.
-
I turn twenty-four next week;
January the fifteenth.
I can still sense the difference between you and I
by the long pauses in between weather talks.
-
I find solace in solitude
and that will never change.
Too many years of misunderstandings,
dope addled family, and conflict avoidance.
-
My mother has an addictive personality
which she tries to superimpose onto me
as a way to keep me away from the ****.
She wants me to be her negative film; her opposite.
-
I wish my grandma had leveled with her
instead of surrounding drugs with the mystique
and the danger of a loaded weapon
in a teenager's back pocket; denim daredevil.
-
Grandma.
Now that is a name I miss saying.
She was the stern force that matured me
and my protector in time of matriarchal absence.
-
Her mind started to die years before her body did
and I had to sit and watch it happen, helpless,
with my mother; her daughter.
Alzheimer's, falls, strokes, and in a flash she wasn't there.
-
I don't find myself rooting for the cause these days.
I just want to escape where I came from;
who I am, but the path is circular.
I'm accepting the fate, bathing in lust, and waiting for summer.

I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

my friends, my friends
we are birds on power lines
huddled for warmth
specks against the grey
surrounded by the late october gloom
and the steam rising up from the gutters
we are restless and sour
eyes pointing outward
-
every step
every teensy, solitary step
sealed with egg shell footprints
womb nostalgia
tenderness found in autumn colored flashes,
moth-wick sparkles, and fried dandelion blossoms
we remember our grandmas’ knuckles,
chipped tiles on the kitchen floor
-
my dear, my dear
we are stray brown tabbies
bellowing rumble, ears stripped of fur
settled into our corner of the front porch
once we were roustabouts;
waltzing to the waxing and wane
carpeted floors gave way to concrete chill
but now the summers seem longer
-
the smell of cardboard,
cinder block walls, and duck pond water
stale memories with naked omens
we turn to face the chilling draft;
tomorrow
harping on and on about grey areas
while we kick up alley gravel
balanced by surface tension
-
under quilts counting freckles
plasma paychecks peddling uphill

By this time of the year (In days of old and times past)
we would already be
                                    
                         ­             skipping off
              
               onto deer trails--------                
^^^^^^^^^^in the woods of Fairview park.^^^^^^^^^^
-
at
    the
          bottom
                   ­   of
Stevens Creek runs through
                         those
                                 steep
                                          hills.
-
We will dip our toes in the slow, murky water
(James came to town)
as the thick, sweet smell of my burning cigarillo
(and the whiskey fell into our glasses.)
lingers on the water's surface.
(It was a race to see who would pass out last)
It is here that we are young; No moss clinging.
(and be the one to see him off at dawn.)
-
That old ****-colored truck with the key broken off in the ignition
will take life with every well-used car I'm in. "The Brown Trout".
Marcus called from the 24-hour gas station on Eldorado
to tell you he broke the key in the ignition and couldn't seem to get the ****** truck started. We gave comedy its due.
What could we have done at that point but stumble into the blue?
I recall forty girls & boys crammed into an efficiency apartment that night
as the bathroom vent sapped the room of smoke, liquor stench
and Nag Champa incense, while the dense fog
of budding lust hung in stasis over our heads.
Boys on the exit living out their tree house fantasies;
drinking away boredom and skateboard injuries.
-
Phantoms of the apartment buildings
(Do you remember Dipper Lane?)
at the end of West Main tell tales of past tenants.
(I seem to have forgotten your name again.)
What does it feel like
(Did you hear something?)
to be a home away from home?
(I've been alone this whole time.)
-
It's four years later and the bikini tree has tan lines,
they cut down the ******* walnut at my old house,
and built my ark from its wood.
Supple leaves line the Sylvan Queen's Kermes colored hair
as we sail for higher ground.
Now the stinging sunlight cuts through the cracks in the wood.
-
I'm examining the border of a much larger picture.
Even now, the resolution grows fuzzy.
You are a leaf on the five-hundredth page of my dictionary. Ginko.
I placed you there on a particularly sunny day in July
when the Magicicadas woke up to the sound of Joe Cocker,
and we both learned the language of the spheres.