She only needed three fingers;
one for demands, one for insults, one to show love.
Her pinky made her feel too prim,
and her thumb made her feel like too much of an ape.
She had no need to hold on to anything,
and no reason to open any doors,
she just wanted a little silence from the thunder
and to see the cracks in the ground on a hot day.
One set of clothes for the doctor,
one set of clothes for the preacher,
and one set of clothes for the home.
She still has a forest green rotary phone with the ringer cut out
just incase the stove gets angry or the roof caves in.
She hated the Beatles and probably hates us,
but that's okay, we're not all that special, are we?

I met my neighbor today.
Well, he's not my neighbor yet,
but he will be when I'm forty-two
and have that burgundy four-door.
He'll have two kids by then,
one from a previous marriage;
loud mouth little *****,
always reminding his step-mother
that his real mom wouldn't stand for
what she wants to call discipline.
I should really remind his dad to return
my rototiller when I see him next.
-
The meteorologist called for sleet
and I still don't see any ****** sleet.
I walked to the fuel station and got a fountain soda;
I counted six stray cats on the way back.
One of them used to belong to a woman
by the name of Jamila who moved back to Atlanta
in July of last summer.
The cat never liked to come to her,
so it stayed behind to chart star patterns.
Sometimes, when no one is out on the street,
the cats meet in alleyways to gossip
about the state of affairs in the soy city.
-
I buried seven heads-up pennies
underneath the yield sign on Union street
last Wednesday, I believe it was.
I'm still waiting on a reply,
but Mr. Cuttlefish isn't known for his punctuality.
No one is around here;
it's bad for your health if everyone knows where
and when you'll be.
They say one of the neighbor kids
found a piece of amber the size of a plum
in a box of Rice Chex from the corner market.
I knew someone would find it eventually.
-
Every umpteenth sidewalk slab has an "X" engraved
in the top, right-hand corner.
It signifies a meeting zone, and if you wait their long enough
I can probably convince one of the
silver men from the condemned apartment building
to let me borrow their aural symphonizer
so I can finally see what it's like
to extract one while it is still alive and roily.
It wont be too long of a wait,
as the men are always brief with conversation
and always seem to blink and breathe
at the exact same time I do.

I'm sorry you had to steal
what was already freely given.
I hope your heart never burns
like mine did the day I wrote that.
I give to you freely
what you honestly deserve,
that is a second chance,
and a word of advice.
Give from yourself,
no gift can ever be poorly graded.

There is a demon behind you

I would never tell you a lie

He’ll tear your heart from your body

If you look him in the eye

He’s a hungry and quiet killer

And tonight he feels great joy

He doesn’t get to eat that many

Attractive girls and boys

You summoned him up by reading these words

I’m sorry I waited to say

This demon and I work hard ever still

To live off of a writer’s pay

I lay the traps and he gets to eat

And in return I receive

Thirty pieces of silver,

And a wardrobe you wouldn’t believe

In the age of prophylactics,
we build skyscrapers out of plastic
Agents of terror trade their bombs in for germs
So we make ourselves prisoners to serve out life terms
Unscalable walls that circle each axis

Hemispherical gates in which they have stored us
Intersecting steel Orobouros
With plenty the yeast farm to serve as our food,
and trend setting deities that change with our mood
A quarter united, we sing out a chorus

Hyper-interactive nonsense to entertain
Connected by a network direct to the brain
With war buried deep, next to monarchs and castles
Their drones target  individuals to save them the hassle
While we sleep in our bubbles, ignorant of pain

here we spin the synchronic dance of the fluids
that dribble down in aesthetic perfection;
free-flowing from the gullet of creation
into the palms of the frenzied flock.
the grim etchings left by her in the signet
reflect the proper terms for glossolalia,
but the honeyed tones are lost to primitive organs
and a piteous gurgle is all that emerges.

here we were, eaters of shale, chewers of dirt,
warmed beneath the blanket of her shadow,
paled by the protection of her casting murk
that hid us from the vile stars.

pollen, pollen, pollen, pollen,
showering, soaking, deep down in the gut.
Bezoar of my bezoar, heart within my sleeve,
I am waiting for my emotions to return to me.

tick-tock motions colliding with still-beating carrion
carrying itself to the back of a ninty-two Toyota Corolla
cracked window crack smoke with the gravel and gum wrappers
specters radiate their hue and render ol' Baker Boy into a heap

there is a shaking on the surface.

wet gravel and neon dance through squinting eyes
passenger pigeon with nocturnal aspirations  
you're in that place now

Lost in a blanket of fog

We dream of decades long past

Worlds of such perfection and youth

Worlds, gone into the night

Spiral pathways mark the truth

Long winding roads of tireless intricacy

Falling from every angle

Walk on, Man of reason

The Future, the undeniable truth

We have for us an unwritten plan

The pen strokes yet to dry

We have all the time in the world

from mouth to messiah, the words felt compressed
lungs gasping frantic and fever dream blush
the croaking of hymns crescendo in the absence
of pomp left extinct in the burrowing hush

charisma unfiltered, he's charged with a burden
of casting the rhythm away from the strut
horned-god-be-******, the spittle and curse
that left mark on the imps and ghasts in his gut

by mother and kin, the night would seep in
and by father-in-tomb he'd oppose it,
for if paradise quakes and the bricks wilt and bend,
death would not emerge lest he chose it