a stenographer, suddenly faced with the importance
of a freshly-inked word on a desiccated page
was so silent, and silence dictates

it spoke volumes, but she was deaf
so her hand just plotted along...

it was as if the texture of the page suggested it
and away the pen ran along the grooves
the scholars were so **** upset
so uptight, alone and aloof

so they spoke to themselves, to no others
and no one fully listened, or tried
(just half interested nods
with minimal eye
contact

and we waited for the end)
as we had walked along
the dusty shoreline

you said;

'I hear the clattering of the television in the next room
the scant candlelight manifests over the dead powerline

& when anyone reads, re-reads it,
I will wonder what was being carried on about
and speculate why your persuasion pervades
a soul-crushing cheapening of the divine
an endless routine, banality of eternity
strength or weakness in our climbing limbs
hosts and the departing parties, faces sans grins

a hound stretches on a stoop
frozen, lacking a cadenced pant
sun splaying its last beams against
skin, warm tin and damp rigor mortis

the letch inside stammers,
retches

his yellowed nails scratch scabs
on flaking elbows
dried snakeskin platelet scales

too much residue
of asbestos and mildew, of
burnt gilded pages for heat
'cause they were of little use
to illiterate plainclothe'd sleuths

and the crows outside caw
with anemic splendor as
their ***** broods grovel


the inebriate inside
draws open dingy curtains
for the sun was finally subdued

he opens the window
to a finicky drizzle

and was interrupted by horse & buggy
and the tangling of her rosettes
transfixing voracious, beady eyes
as objects of interest phased out of view

we heard all this through the grey horseshoes
trudging through forgotten alleyways
all too loud and dramatic


we watched from fog outside
the ****** tavern where they drank
blood straight from the stomachs of lampreys
downing life, agnostics proudly clapped, with
death and decay on a parsley'd dinner plate

lingering in the hospital waiting room
for an embellished platter of viscera
to fill vacancies, with burnt rot
with a sterile, surgical tang
and jagged accoutrements
all are gorging lovingly,
already anticipating dessert

each solitary phantasm of a person, slouching in booths, on stools
smirks knowingly at the song that's now playing on the a.m. radio
while positioning their utensils, scooping, filling cavernous maws

and they all smiled
as their eyes gasped
as those outside
chipped their teeth
on rusted forks, and sighed

the dead ounce of liveliness failed to
take hold of its slouching bags of bones
and the coyote howled at the sound of the siren curfew

so listen carefully to the inflection of static hissing
the joyful crackle of disembodied voices

an uninterested archaeologist studied the bones of eight
dead citizens who had a gradually tightened their grips around our dreams, tapering
as furling curtains swathed the incoming light, swirling, forcing it into nonentity
one would steer the ill-fated course of all.


bury the hatchet that was used to hatch you
put all of your eggs into one spermicidal basket
only the heavy-handed preamble to my funeral
could weigh against such lofty comparisons

we commuted to separated isles, each with their own emulation of truth
with cathartic perspectives, trees wait to abed in your predestined lynching
placing viney nooses into mother nature's scrapbook, a cherished keepsake,
your freckled dna, an infinitesimal page in her tattered cookbook

only in an afterworld will you be allowed to read your book's foreword
know that there is no snooty producer to create for you a cash-in sequel
they all watch you from afar, hungry, salivating
failing to make a distinction between your life and demise

their story's nothing but an interminable sad ending
a null conclusion with nothing to conclude
it holds its breath, crosses its fingers
hoping again to come through
as I placed defeat to my temple and squeezed

I veered into a claustrophobic brick encasement
colored with lifelessness, detachment
and learned infinity is combustible;
an unfolding polygonal paper
forever unwrapping

I've walked with wrecked leagues
casually entered fiery caverns
and the chilling daytime before me,
never is it compelling

I resigned my mind, contemplated grave comprehensions
redid everything, coughing opuses, deftness, drugged insight

my tactics turned to taciturn. no one was conducting
the open metaphor of your eyes, rendering
internal captions. endless captive renditions

my adoration:
the thickly-caked rust in the kitchen faucet
if you catch my spotty, deposited
despot eyes in direct sunlight,
you'll realize their dimness

staring vacantly
into oncoming traffic,
looming passages

he's in love with movements of air;
her distances traveled between it

we were so visibly shaken
after the rest died out &
your bouquet dried out

we were left with our sagging, old brains
& no one's interested, beyond our machines
in our old constructs, or perhaps, new mishaps

he was unsure of what he should be seeking, and
it appeared the pipes in the basement were leaking
yoke propped onto his cracked shoulders, scrutinized
by the heavy eyes of caliginous violet smoulders


she's in love with unfair moments
the blurring of every before and after
barring the moon through creaky rafters
with ****** gloom and insincere laughter
at the sky, bearing its last each and all
tapping on a shivering wall


with a head to traumatize,
to object to the onslaught-
is to reject the tireless ****
a timeless, photogenic glut
and a refutation, erased


a collection of
twelve billion cells
with a ****** captain

giving in to the never-ending
aching, delving, pervading, as

the lecherous lecturer
and a solemn giantess
left on the barren foothill
where it all transgressed

your slightest movement signified everything you wouldn't say
and the daunting days piled up as you hoarded them all away
we toppled over and crumbled in a drizzly march with a grizzly, gloomy may
june is a troubadour, a roomy humidor for a wealthy fatcat's ratty toupee
wilful ways flutter and stutter in a bluish daze, a risqué soirée
a field day for the crazed, healthy fiancés of disarray and decay

If I could stand on a metaphor
trust me, I surely would
I would forage in the sand
if I could weather the ****** rain

I should've become a man in two tenfold breaths
and learned the only reciprocal is pain
and only certainty is death
or so it would seem


if we could stand on this metaphor
it'd collapse. we'd watch it
shatter in time-lapse

and we found;
every ocean had dried
in every insect's dream
as light flickered outside

there was never enough of it to go around
as we set foot on rough, shaky ground

the writers block entrances to stone vestibules
life congeals and appeals to those despicable few
creaky mattress, true, but we flew by burnt capitals

the grass's dew dried up at four o'clock in the morning
we learnt the vastness of our own chaotic complexities
it's impractical, doling out the pasts to our moping guests
insight into their creature comforting me, smiling languidly

he saw those hooligans dance above his crumbling tombstone
impregnated by the rain, headlight shone into impending gloom
waiting, moaning, mourning in a deadlocked, deadweighted room
we're inclined to drown in our own questions, in irreconcilable fate
and a hateful frown, the tasteful waste adorning those latest to bloom