immortality is easy-peasy. you play dead.

you live now. and simply continue. you just get on with it.
zig-zag in plain sight. like a shimmer in an old daguerreotype.
if you must fade. always do it sideways.

You can be polite. Or you can tell all the Julia’s in the world the things you think about when they’re talking to You.  You could just…  Start. Talking.  It would be delicious and taboo and all that, and maybe a little awkward for all the Julia’s but the mainest thing… It would be impossible to ever. give. a ****. ever. again. You Know This. You Know It Like you Know how many bottles of champagne it takes to even Begin to be enough champagne. This skill is highly prized. And you can DO this. You can do this Sophia. Right here. Right now. You can - tch. You’re not even listening to me, are you?  That is awesome.
    I can see it all now… one, two maybe five Julia’s all yapping away in a Vera **** pincer formation and then….! You open your mouth. The stars fall. The Julia’s are like “ What the-? “ and you, Sophia… Drowning the Gallery. Using all the colors you discovered on your expeditions. A Rainbow made of Lions. I can see it. And you can DO this. You can do this Sophia Conasta. Right here. Right now. You can even begin with a… You’re not even listening to me, are you? My God! you’re beautiful.
Like a bomb that uses a fork because ground zero was no place be Un-Civilized. In fact. Ground Zero wasn’t even a Place until you got there. And let your Self, drop! I mean to say…. You can be polite. Or. You can be Sophia being sophia. period. There’s a lot of tuxedos at this Event, have you noticed that? When did they come back? And why lord! do they all look terrible?
    How long have I been gone? What the hell is Julia talking about now? That’s Leonard Maxwell and his assistant, April Alcott.  She burns money to watch it burn-Ironically, but she’s not sure if she’s doing it right because if it Meant Anything in the first place, she would be first to have no clue what it meant. So now she nails it, but never gets a prize. She bought a lot of my dark stuff from 5 yrs ago that paid for the flat in Portland. What the hell is she wearing? A rhinestone baby Jesus tongue stud? I love these parties. I hate these parties. I’m Sophia Conasta. Celebrated Artist whose Body of Work has astonished the Hoi Polloi of the Art World, and totally lost right now.
     What is Julia’s problem? Did she lose a Horse? Again? Somehow?Or Something? Open Bars Are Go! I’ll just weave my way over to the Gayest Cabal and Julia will be scraped off like a Barnacle* By GUCCI, and then I’ll be clearly Minus One Julia. That can only be a good thing. And - Open Bar. Breathe, Drink
Genius.

.

i was a little bit hazy on the details, but you can't find me anywhere.
i am the stranger.
we have Not been to hell and back and spent all our money.
we haven't the faintest idea " who you are "
but my identity is fluid
like a ******* on Betamax -
for no reason.

i was born on a Someday.
and You are the only one
that knows.

it gives me
chills.

it gives me answers
to questions, i have yet
to imagine.

it gives me You.

pray for blue lemons and you'll discover
the limits of your religion.
dance in a viper's den
and your wounds
will not remember the steps.
or the fool.

you do not come from origins.
you arrive, loved before you know yourself
and your actions burble in the dark
willow branches... taking a **** on the Moon.
you laugh when i say that
but you know me now.
i keep the spiders from eclipse like a Pro.
i sweep rugs under the rug
and replace them
with all of
my -

“ I don’t know “

so Life is how we embrace
too soon, before that.
for no reason that English can French.
we adapt.

with all that Latin
in our laps
in a cauldron
of acid
laughs.

i must not be what I'm into.
i go where the wrong things
know you.
i dream till it hurts
but that's always.
and i'm always the one dead
that says things.
don't be where you are
as much as nowhere.
don't live your defeat
as much as live there.
don't know who
you are
if you're
not
and cancel reservations
if you're gone. gone
gone.

I'm done killing flies
with honey today
and the sundial
in the garden
will know the moon.
i will chasten
the charlatan of midday
with the deep scarlet
of waning light.
I'm done killing flies
with honey today
but I've begun
a narrative of feathers
with a dove
with no
faith.

i get carried away,
it's delightful how
the air
you breathe
was mine
once.

and that
trips me out.
i could give till it hurts
'cause that's not
a waste of my
time.

so i'm inclined
to relieve you of your sundress
i'm inclined
to relieve you of your sunset

always shine.

we are night and day
the clever shadows in gingersnap rags
plotting  to brood in Bohemia
stamping kiwis
clicking our heels the way
twilight clinks in a glass of Bourbon
or typewriters chat chat chat
like iron tea leaves

perhaps

shed a tear into a Grecian urn
then write your name in a drift of salt.
siphon fog from the lip of a needle
and with a lump of coal
draw blood.

tip glaciers into a lake of fire
and dive in.
caste a pinch of deep
into the shallows of your human heart.
tell the truth -
you can't remember
it's name
then be redeemed.

then tell redemption, it never understood you

at all.

after 2 AM the tinnitus of a withering day has abated.
the shrill un-boundaries of our servitude
collapse into auguries seeping
from a perforated moon
like white honey.
all it’s thought
a dot on a creature
made of holes.
stumbling home from a mansion
to a flat.

in a yellow car.

today is all day and without you, the numb comes burly.
an unkempt one.
a numb that preys. and you
are on the Other Side of the World -
and the girl i want
at the same time.

our worlds are not alike.
we are undone by our astronomy
as much as we have
chemistry;
and that's the hollow
of our fondest
hope !

the barrel full of stream.

Sleep has been a sluggish pixie and the moon a constant Patheon
Of Twilight Sirens. I am lulled into molasses eyes and am never sane.
Only a  ghost in my sheleton. A malingering cocoon
in the shape of a perpetual Snow White Crane.
I garden the grove of Midnights inner thy
and valiantly persist. I lay siege where I lay down my arms to suffer peace - as merely a mirage of luminous Tchotchkes and stolen kisses from Abyssal Lips.

Under wrong stars, I roam the Halls of UnTime. I go on my way where looming is sprinting into stagnations embrace
with all the vigor of Hermes. Floating in the hall is like surfing a dark gods wave. An undulating fog
of prodigious oblique.  in haste.
I am a Time Machine that writes poetry
and may never finish my Tea.
Earl Grey.

With the Soul of a
Frozen Agog.

tell you why your kite is dead. i'll tell you why you sing flat.
this is what i do gently even though the tide against me, is Sparta on crack.
you don't recall our fierce love, the oblivion mambo of our singular act !
are you sure you don't forget      too better remember how
you wish you felt about that ?

this is how the world ends. it begins.
At the root, lightning gathers moss
and the surge
deepens the horizon's applause.
we die for the cause; bewildered as we choose
to arise, or lift off -
the unearthed
to one
worse -
than the one
we're from.

a loose grain of rice
in the chamber of our starvation,
plump from the tears of our elation
that someday
will be the
Last Day...
and that will be,
an ironic
Occasion.

Because Night will follow.

put me in a barrel
in the pouring rain
wipe that smile off your face
when you say my name.
keep your clouds to yourself
if you do that thang
with your gospel tonsils
on x-ray steam.
and prepare for the worst -
sort of pristine gloom.
but rebel in the dirt
of an ink blot moon.
your salmon skin
is so south of my veins
it's an arctic star
where the empty
remains.

it would never be this if it weren't for it really really is,
and you have no idea. and That keeps you sane where the truly mad are guessing the number of tad poles in the belly of a supernova. mumbling in the dark.
you have No idea.

now that we have established that you know what i mean by you have ideas
that are of little consequence
to your inertia..... ( pregnant pause )

could i *** a smoke ?
a ' *** ' if you're from some kinda
London, England ?

could this be the Apocalypse ?

could This ?

it is december when the wheat sun is wane and the letters stop coming
in groups of three
and the windows creak in morse code and steam clings to every sigh.
it is december when the most of you is lingering -
just above the tinkling crisp
of shadow versus snow...

the origin of hope is everywhere and frozen.

again and again, the world renews the spike in the palm
and north winds bear down upon the inky black
where dead stars illuminate the zodiac of our inner defeat.
an upturned display of seedless fruit against a backdrop
of discrete harm... and the south wind scratching at the twinkle
of a last act. a mirage of poppies and golden wheat
from which the bread of our maker is baked into the glamor
of so much solitude in a galaxy
in your house.

morning slips your beauty in
where i kept my shabby foolishness
and drapes me in such delights, to dim
a nebula of loneliness...

A poor dead house
simpering in the gallows
of a just regret.
an uncoupling of a sun
from it's moon.
leaning in the southern north
of a belligerent east.

the paint is failing.

and the windows face oblivion...
but the staircase
leads to heresies
so beautiful, the march hare screams -
and all whimsy folds.

the old things youthen
in the marsh of our misgivings
and the rooms are bare
save one hope

choking the stars
for a god.

every song
one note.

it looks
like rain.
but it might
be you.

i'll have
you know
how that
feels

so kiss me
and that'll be
something

closer to the next  kiss

what's not to like ?

loving you is effortless
with training wheels.

laughing with your eyes
my blind love
can focus

on real life

when your headlights caress
the walls
i know
all about
this very moment
then
you come home  and the lights...
and something...
i.... forget
every time

your keys to the house make music


then as
always, you
startle me
even when i know
you're there

even when
you're there
so gently

there to lend me
your eyes
to laugh
with.

you're there
to fix me  

as always... your lips say

" ok. now... just turn around..."

then you
do the zipper
in the back
of my
skin.

how long has
that thing

been there ?

Keep your keeping where i can see it.
i will let you know i've had enough charlatan
when my eyes break from trying you.
I retreat and advance.
but that is the pattern of unspoken people.
the web of your truth is the ladder
that ascends to the bottom
of all glorious
null.

but me.

I am the duke of dead blocks.
i live here, chaffing windmills and knots.
i slum the cheerful. go where the going
is more gone....
If nothing happens, I can't be here.
but if you do
i must love
you.

I plot my course
through -
like a whale with no song.
just a hunting party
dismissed for the weather
and the wrong
wrong.

i am unknown.
however i bake
my cake
the quintessence of a fool
is His oven,
or Her
mcguffin...

so
let the heat
play Winter's Thoughts
and arrive
unspooled
before the likes
of me
and my complete
collapse.

I am redacted
from the narrative,
much like -
your reason to breathe -
lurks behind a
myst.

or a fog is a glimpse.

You

you
un-suture
the parabola
from the arch of
all Monte Cristo !
you shank the villain
as villainy is your twin.,,
we cohabit  
the one
and split the difference
the same.

from some " within ".


II

much
like thin filaments of music returning to a stream
to bow their heads in the Eucharist of a slit wrist  -
we are confluent in the chambers of our undertow
and serve such masters, a world can endure
but hardly love the triumph of the cube
over paisley cubes,

III


i almost say something all the time.

IV

all the Time,

i should hardly know the difference between
myself and perfection. but i do.
it is written in our skulls. in the cavity of our domes of conscience-
in a sprawling hand
like a Neanderthal had happened upon a new skill
that allowed him to carve into bone
the very meaning of insufficient.
in a sprawling hand.
i should hardly know just how to find truth
in this mirage. but i do.
it is written in our skulls. across the zenith of oblivion.
with references. followed by a word so vast
it would save a man
to speak
"if."

the flowers
are gullible lovelies
bruised  hinges in a flute
where the music fails
but Spring entangles the weavers
of Day.

Like the spider
of the Sun
is clinching to an avalanche
of some dark
pun...

Some English
on the ball
squares the
knot.

But the circle
jerks
and the dream
wants.

whatever it means
it means less...
but forever
it means

regardless.

nirvana has no heart.

you must dissolve
in all directions to arrive.
you must not be
too american.

and have a **** salad every now and then
it won't **** you.

all the poetry in the world is fading,
a jumble of eloquent tucked into spools
of neglected reverie.
i thumb through the caustic champions
of my inner mythos
and find no Hercules.
only goats and knives.... swimming
in almost love.

Summer is a dull grain of sunlight.

but the horizon is far enough away to be a promise
for Now.
I seek it like i must be there to live more alively.
but cannot die for it as much as i want.
these are the symptoms of breathing.
breathing in the vacuum
of our choosing.
the urge is the force
that cannot live without your descent.
because hell is a place
made for you.

morning came very early... like a graduate class.
it dispelled the notion of a snowflake's last Will and Testament
gilding the nettles, where the berries were plump and deep virility
nesting in the fearsome spines of an Urchin
of such Symmetry, that your medallions
become clay; and your Heart is restored
to fullest Rage... where a lark Once donned the Umbral Crown
of a yellow Sun.... Now morning came early in the dark
stealing your revisions from the very skull
of your Mind's Meme. from the skull you etch your herds
Of Bison... some figure with a spear
plunging deeply into the
'Side Joke.

You are Purchased
for a thimble of blood from a white Turnip !
and returned to the Parties, gargling rainbows and leprosy...
chafing the Beauty of a grog of distilled amnesias in a perfect Assumption... grooming our prayers for higher education
via fresh Hells and chipping away, always away, at the ****** Windows !
shards of a slightly opened view to a backyard
over a sink in your feelings, where you cup your hands
and splash a bracing revelation from a cool spring
Sprung from a pipe that runs Under the House, in the Dirt's dirt....
There in the gut of where
You call your Self
by Your
Name...

like a lamb in a lion's mouth
sharing the spoils of sacrifice
as well the lethality
of a Conviction's breach. you groom the best oblivions
running a comb through your Beached Whale.
all the blubber for your candles lit !
to better gloom the room's dark harmony, with all the Irony
Intact. but never the reason
you seldom
spat at Kites -
until the Wind bit your nose
in December...
because you never found a scarf
to match the disappointment in your
imagined eyes
as seen through the crease of your profile,
squinting at pixies
and marsh fires.... loving you in spite of you
is the every day horror of discrete epiphanies
that lead only to a grave of fireflies
and stray orphans from a clutch
of messenger pigeons... painted to look like wisps -
of no more than a grain of shadow...
with feathers so soft they perish
as you tremble your touch... groping the fragile wings
of a robot's grip on soaring metaphors... a frantic sort of hazy.
connections where the frost burns
your navel -
while basking in the
Furnace.

like a peach in a lightning bolt... fermenting in Plato's Cave
bargaining the Mahjong for the Google Map -
to your very next departure.
" Living the Glimpse " is what they call it,
back at Rocco's Bar.
you never drink for free but never pay for the miles you weep
with the tears you keep.
you make a Living Wage... and part with your loot.
and the bourbon back.
limestone heartaches merely caverns
where you least expect to see your Self
cavorting in the dark
with the
Truth.

You Beam Down to Look Up.

most of your amulets are barnacles
but you Sea just fine.

roving the volume of an Emptiness
with flint and a raincloud
by design.

preaching to a Flame about
an Iceberg god
that never Fell a Tree
to set ablaze.

you are never seen again if you catch the bus...

and nothing else happens
anyways.