It's not as if everything was floating    at the time
we weren't bewildered by anything at all      the
third dimension is a twin born of my eyes the
fourth dimension is merely an abortion

It's not as if we were splitting the atom          [ˈadəm]
the basic unit of a chemical element a.k.a. that which
cannot be divided by any part of the physical world

It's not as if I could shuffle my soul like a deck of cards
    here in the garden we bury the dirt underneath the flowers
and you could find the original earth if you listened hard enough
    here everything is millions of years new

But it's not as if we're all floating or if we were we wouldn't even be able to tell the difference because in our ignorance everything was as perfect we were

I give my lungs,
to a one-eyed machine,
at the intersection of law and order,
and dividing the atom,
on which it stands,
strong and masculine,
naked and invisible,
with enough gravity to make us all fall.

*Amen.

Hell no, last year

I wiped the petals off an artificial flower using the dust from the dust bowl, my grandfather starved to death trying to swallow his own neck, my neice has made an army of stones that she's gathered from the garden

Hell no, last year

I am up to my neck in things I don't have, not that it matters if we're all standing on chairs, I gathered up pieces of plastic this morning and ate them instead of recycling

Hell no, I stand in the middle of the highway and light a cigarette

I don't consider this dangerous

It all fell into     the water
they dropped off into the
hole in the earth      that's
no volcano, it's where the
moon came from     that's
the great ironing board
that they use to starch
God's shirts.

It all must be pressed shut      like the plastic lips of
the prophets who buy furniture,     like the image of
the captain riding a bicycle,      like the pain of a bee
sting underneath your eye, draw up a photograph
of the survivors,       this is what you lost and where
to find it,      this is the origin of time travel received
by the most primitive humans.  That's where you put
your hands when you want to take us home.

my father has been drowning goldfish in the lake: forces me to clean the windows, take the trash down to a ridge over the wasteland, draw a graph of the supply-and-demand of our business, then refill the fish tank

my mother has been having flashbacks to her wedding: tells me not to play in the street, reduces me to rubble during a bombing, has me write a paper outlining the culture across the sea, then tells me never to get married

In the beginning the world was perfect, and small enough to fit inside a marble, like a book you can judge by the cover, in the beginning was the word.

And then everything exploded, and nothing could be reduced back down to a single atom, and nothing was alone, and the word was with God.

And everything was pulled together to form the earth, and they divided things up into animals, vegetables, and minerals, and then two became one and the word was God.

And then the land was molded into valleys and mountains, and nothing could be created or destroyed in the ocean of matter, and the spirit of God was floating over the water.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the spirit of God was floating over the water.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and he saw that it was good.

pull the lever
and flush steroids
into the water
to make the fish grow larger
soon we'll have to buy
a bigger ocean

as I age the environment around me is also aging at the same time, it's impossible to remain in one place,

and near my family reunion: my father is still digesting a piece of gum, he says "I was never the type to believe in horoscopes," says "let's beat this guy up and take his telescope"

My God is the best God     my umbrella keeps rain
from touching my forehead, a stone they roll away

I take a drawing for a basket of airplanes, rainbows
over movie posters      a city that fell into the ocean

Pushing the envelope against the rain, I fake a letter
of trigonometry     declaring myself to be a dead body

A tattoo of a drum beating under a cloud      **** me
up with a conundrum, using double negative numbers

Probably a fake whirlpool, the natural condition of
radioactive material, a sound dripping out from a hole

I run open the door with a flag, they stole the border
back from the goverment, pretending to be Indians

I wish I was a moth, to find more comfort in lightbulbs.

I haven't eaten all day,
outside that cats wail like
an ambulance siren.

Then everything goes quiet,
like the body of one who has died.

Inside the kitchen I drink
from the right side,
of the faucet.

I wait for the ladder to disappear,
to the attic
to the ceiling
to the roof of my dream.

I throw my soul into the garbage disposal.

I tie my shoes,
with the ink from today's newspaper.

I don't have a problem with stringing
my heart out, play me like a guitar on
the radio, I keep locking my keys out
of my car, I point my chest into the sun
and touch other problems

     bullet, bullet, gun,

My friend has a voodoo doll and a nose job,
when we're at his house we drink with our
shoes off     and I'd call that a revolution.

I don't need your
faucet, I have all the
right tools at my disposal,
please ****** me:

use a ******* semicolon

I uprooted the flowers in my neighbor's garden and
I call it shadow boxing, eating the icing off my brother's
wedding cake (he's marrying someone in the army)

-first thing I'll acid-wash all my best denim

-secondly I'll dress up as a funeral director and go trick-or-treating

-thirsty for a drink of kool-aid and/or whiskey


In that case, I'll go bar-hopping with my best friend
and we'll probably get ourselves arrested, I met the
guy who smashed thirty mailboxes back in '97
(he said: the hardest part is picking the best address)

(the following is
made of the fabric
from your curtains)


I don't want to get ****** up about nothing, but
here's the antidote to loss of hearing, when you
drink fruit juice and spit things you find in your
mouth at the arcade, when I sleep in my brother's
brain I wake up a gemini and I hate french cooking

I don't miss you,

I only miss the view through your windowpane

My grandfather killed himself using rerun
shows and his nephew's mullet, an egg
stuttering across        a parking lot segway
a mass suicide by the binders on a pill
tearing apart         I snapped the zipper on
my favorite hoodie that I lost my virginity
in, my favorite thing is findings 20 dollar bills
that I stored in the empty battery compartment
of my alarm clock,

a teacup filled with blood and sawdust

They say it takes 13 days to form a habit. That's
how long it's been since I threw my heart into a
box of condoms. I called upon the ghost of my
reincarnation. He bought me flowers and thanked
me for my patients. I drove my car into the hospital
to find a regular doctor. One that won't sew my eyes
together. I need to stop taking benadryl, it ***** with
my emotions. I've decided to put things into the holes
in my apparition. I'll wear a ****** whenever I feel
like it. I don't take orders,

                                              I don't need your permission.

This is a poem about ***. I am a strong and beautiful creature. I'll buy presents for all my friends. The sand is to bed and sheets are to ocean.  I call myself unclean. I take another pill I find under the cushion of my neighbor's sofa. I play the violin in a dream. It started because I learned I was in love with you. I memorized the waves of your contours. I call up all my exes and leave voicemails on their answering machines. I'll break things into perfections.

I call myself unforgiven.

In the evening I will open a store
that sells shadows, to compliment the dying
of the day.

My first customer will be a man who
drowns himself in holy water, who buys his
dreams secondhand.

Dream analysis is useless on this one,
the metaphors are cheap and only relevant
to their original owners.

Instead of swallowing magic he will swallow
his own fears, he buys a shadow that will hide
his form completely, he stands in the center of the
stage, and with a flash and a bang he disappears.

I spend my dollars on vending
out water out the window my
sofa that is probably telepathic
when I'm on too many tabs I
tend to leave my window open
I broke my wrist climbing to
the planets the stars are camera
pinholes we are under government

surveillance and just like a God
I have rings around my throne

I search for god in the kitchen sink,
washing my hands during surgery,
turning me on like water in my airduct,
giving my ego a ******* haircut,
I might end up dead trying to blow up the sun,
I'm looking for my head,
like a rabbit chasing a gun

I got in a fistfight with the sky. I have bruises on my
knuckles. they ask me what I want for my
birthday. I said nothing. I lost my
virginity in a parked car. it felt like air tastes.
I robbed a house using my birthday present. I keep my
wits about me. I take apart the wires in my
speaker. there's no god in my
underwear. it sounds like a crucifix.
I got in trouble with the law. I used up all my
funds in a plethora of traffic violations. my
bedspring heart came undone when you fingered my
locks. I set off fireworks in your backyard. you broke my
aquarium. I'm the last ******* dinosaur. and you,

my meteor.

And I sit smoking high on my mushroom
reading a role call for every single raindrop,
I the imitation of a lesser God, though I may
not be so small and able, I the perfect paradox,
wearing shoes without socks and beds without
blankets, and I the gravitational pull, sitting smoking
at the center of the universe, and I the holy caterpillar,
turning my lungs into butterflies, and I the unbreakable
bond, the glue that holds all love together,

And I the King of hearts,
a prisoner in my house of cards

I ran through a field of flowers turned
upside down like an hourglass with
sand falling through the sky attracted
to magnetic butterflies that vibrate
with new technology and take off like
spaceships taking off their clothes
like the earth's gravity underneath the
acid rain on the prefrontal cortex
of your left side brain, a body the breaks
to be eaten like bread drinking wine
in bed, the very first sound you ever said

I want to get the universe off with my presence,
take apart the grass machines and put them back
together, we can eat the sun whole if we want to,
and I will swim upstream back through the tunnels,
folding time over for an ant to walk across, if only
I could live forever, I want eternity to *******
to my image, if only I could wander without getting lost

I would dance on the tabletops,
and tie you down with rainbows

I want to fall asleep beside you
bury my thoughts under subconscious blankets
open all the windows and let the light in
I want to be the center of attention
tie up strings around dream ballerinas
take all the paper off our presence
I want you to **** me slowly
and prove to the universe that I am already dead
I want to fall asleep beside you
and wake up in your head

I felt like turning a talking doorknob and as the room got smaller
I walked a tightrope through the forest and
I felt strange and important as
I heard the sounds of smoke on a mushroom
I got lost in a garden of talking flowers after which
I spaced my eyes out in a house of cards
I said "off with her head" and grabbed my scissors
I killed the white rabbit and replaced him with a puppet and
          making my way back through the wardrobe
I dug a new tunnel
          to the part of my brain I don't remember

I can hear the ocean in my earrings they are filled with
saltwater I can hear the music echo in my exoskeleton
I can hear your voice through my ribcage telephone

Waiting around for wherever I want to go

The zombies are outside egging your house and covering the fence
in pesticide to keep away the locusts while on tv the weatherman
predicts that it will start raining blood

Meanwhile I will sit in my
basement storage room
until I run out
of water

An earthquake shakes the world and the sky falls off exposing the
machinery at work behind the stars I go outside and stand in the
backyard to wash myself clean in the meteor shower inside this

My beautiful natural disaster

I push the needle through the cloud and hit rock bottom
pull back on the plunger and inhale the fumes wondering
how pure this streak is when I push my thoughts together
saying "how long does it take to form a habit" one day you
wake up in the bathtub with a lighter in one hand the other
hand turning into a tree putting down roots into the porcelain
and coughing up blood trying to talk to your lungs but failing
and missing the vein, I'll try again this time staining the syringe
with type A and push down on the plunger to chase my own
shadow away down the alley

Where it wonders if I talk in my sleep