My baby and me, we dream together
Of life beyond the green
We dream without the holds of now
We dream of life unseen
My darling and I prepare for life
That eventually will be
A life together, a life forever
With just my baby and me

There are faces in the ocean; there are bodies in the sea,
There are bloated, driftwood-corpses that float up and welcome me.
To the seashore where I've found them, to my bed back where I sleep,
I dream of sky-blue faces as they swirl down in the deep.

As a Scorpio who's well-intentioned
I will try to avoid your mentions
But I still will dream of you—
Little Virgo, sky/sea blue

Why sky and sea?
Well let me see. . .
What better way to describe thee?

As clouds aloft, thou art, thou art
So pure and soft, thou art, thou art
And when thou thinks of me unwell,
Thou art a maelstrom's swirling hell.

So sky and sea
Yes, those are thee
Yet wouldst not water describe me?

Unpredictably consistent
Sometime calming; oft persistent
And as water wears at coast
Seems I'm the one who wears you most

Sky and sea, sky and sea
Could it be they're meant to be. . .

An homage to our similar'ty?
Twins of cloth yet each a rar'ty?
Evidence that we are one?
No separation when out the sun?
Could it be the sky and sea
Are mostly you and mostly me?
Perhaps in our co-mingled blueness
We have found a vein of trueness
And as the sky turns orange and pink
And sea as dark as pitch
We turn ourselves from sea to sky
And follow that sunny niche

And it's just, the more I pull away the more it seems elastic dreams of snapping back
I've lived on razor's edges long enough to know a cut that's coming
And the cut that's coming I've stopped before but it wants more, it want the string
These things come with a price that's paid by the ones that lay me down
The waters are deep below but I just might go swimming
The waters are deep below but you want to follow
me and I can't let you
I can't imagine losing you even if the losing is done after I've lost
And maybe it'll always be this way night and day making two endless cycles of battles until I'm not sure if I'm waking from sleep or sleeping to avoid the waking nightmare of the thing I want to do
Now with growing concern I realize too late that it is fate that all I've done is draw out my final breath for a few more years and no one hears the voice in my head that convinces me it might be fun to be
Dead dreams grow like weeds in my rib cage sores and I pull them out and leave them on the window sills because talk and pills seem endlessly to be the answer
but I know the answer is just a delay of the inevitable and that's okay
so long as it means I make it another day
So long as I get to keep you, and I suppose, so long as you get to keep me

They bought up the bands first.
Every half-bit guitarist with some ripped
denim clothing jumped at the chance
to have more than bus fare to the next gig.

They bought up the bands and they
turned them into Spam.
Canned meat that is meant never to expire,
meant to be shipped to islands all over the world,
large and small.

Packaged, processed, made of who knows what.
It says what on the can, on the band, sure.
After all, who’s ever met a label that couldn’t be
doctored or fudged or a flat-out lie?

They bought up the music and the music flowed,
heavy with propaganda pollutants,
and we all changed our minds.

Our minds were worn as riverbeds are worn
as the music flowed through like a river flows through.
And the smokes we smoked were the smokes they smoked,
industry-purchased, paper-wrapped cancers.
And the shares went higher and the music played louder
and the bad that was turned worse
until everything turned from flowing to forcing
and the music was the ocean, large and terrible and murderous,
with things deeper and darker lurking beneath.

They bought up the bands and the music
and they wiggled their music-wedge into
the doorway of the tube, the telly, the tv, the idiot box.
After all, what’s so big a leap that the ocean of
the machine that is industry-music can’t manage?

They bought up the music, they converted us.
They bought up the television, they led us by the nose
like  ducklings, like lemmings.
They made us believe in art, believe in something
with lead-based paint covering the ***-metal caricature
of something that had been, long long ago,
but which never was, not truly.

Politics is pervasive, and politics pushes through.
The biggest stack pushes the players around,
makes the little guy fold even if he’s got a royal flush.
Because the biggest stack bought the half-bit guitarists
and the music and the television and all of us, bit by bit.

The biggest stacks have been buying us, every one.
And each of us has chosen sides, multiple sides,
because we don’t know what we’re fighting for,
but we know we’re fighting and we know we’re being bought.
It’s a difficult war we’re all fighting, alone and together.
A difficult series of seemingly pointless battles,
and we’re being bought and sold all the while.

But isn’t it nice to be wanted.

Spirits whisper from their glasses as they slip from mouth to mouth
And frigid fingers feel the way to let the cirrus crystals out
And ghostly gasps surround and bound from wall to window sash
As irons souls with oxidation from their glassy prison dash
'I am rust; wilt thou hold me?' silent whisper floats in quick
Before you answer, a breath unheld beheads the flame on candle wick

Everything is unto everything is unto itself

I think too much; I'm a Thoughtaholic
Got a chronic case and the addiction's got me good
An acquired taste
But isn't everything?
I'm thinking to remember to forget but I don't
Circles unto circles and I've wound myself up
I wind up here: thinking again
I'm thinking of everything and nothing
Racing down the track to my future and demise
What do I see?
It's too fast, but I've thought it
I've thought it and the thinking will catch up with me
My liver will shut down
I guess my metaphor will shut down long before that
But I'm thinking myself to death
Like an old alchie
I'm thinking alone again
Thinking a double, on the rocks

Sundrops and melted hearts
fill the streets in their empty parts
where the asphalt starts to tear and break
the melty bits fix the mistake
And flowerbeams and rainbow-daggers
launch attacks until sadness staggers
clutching at a mortal head-laceration
the tears have now left the station

So it is that on a sunny day
A funny day, a Mon-i-day
The good bits make better
The cheeks that were wetter
When good thoughts had all gone away

Cookie-cutter classics are what I'm listening to
Songs like these just always seem to make me think of you:
Same as others, yet still popular; you leave me feeling blue
Wishing for a cookie-cutter to make me the same as you

Depression and I, we wear the same faces
We're in the same places; I see him in the mirror
Maybe depression isn't real—maybe that's the twist
Maybe depression is my twin I ate in the womb
Maybe depression is my shadow, my impending tomb
Maybe depression is a word I made up years ago
An excuse for my brain bending backwards to find
The right words to explain what it's doing
I don't know what it's doing
It seems to
Maybe I'm not real—maybe that's the twist

A readied man prepares himself for the schedule he can keep
But readied men are not prepared for the undetermined deep
The readied man will hold his page of dates and names and numbers
But those prepared for certain doom uncertainty encumbers

In I ride with fist held high
Burning gleam in either eye
Shouting upward at the sky:
“Burn the syllabi!”

Those ready men with paper sheaves, fledgling spears, and Pilot pens
Will find that with the chaos waves of fractal truth the world bends
And in the bending all exists as nothing more than blank code
So ready then your warships, but you’re tacking down the wrong road

In I ride with standard high
Burning gleam in either eye
Shouting upward at the sky:
“Burn the syllabi!”

The Four Horseman: Complexity, Uncertainty, Recurrence
Trajectory will maximise Lyapunov’s occurrence
Put on your scheduled armour and when you ride that rigid line
Remember that you penned it in and you claimed it would be fine

In We ride with fists held high
Flaming embers in place of eyes
Shouting ‘til the echoes die:
“Burn the syllabi!”

Yet again it begins as the puppet master spins
Tangling the strings and holding up the wings
And down go the angels into hell
Down goes the bucket in the well
But the water comes up empty
And the bucket sinks down dry
And as sure as skies are falling
There's a needle in my eye

Did you try to tell me something
When you floated out to space?
Did you try to let me know
That the void was in my place?
That the emptiness consumed you
And you consumed my heart
And when you found it lacking
You blew us both apart

Yet again it will end and we greet again as friends
But the knots that were tied are just tangles multiplied
And the complication's ever
Ever present, ever on
Ever present, ever on
Ever on and on and on

Did you try to tell me something
When you sank down in the deep?
Did you try to let me know
That I was making you lose sleep?
Then those sleepless nights defined us
And defined we could not stay
And when that door was opened
You walked out and away

Yet again it begins as the wooden puppet spins
Held up fast and held up tight casting shadows in the light
And down goes the curtain on the stage
Fistfuls of hair fly in a rage
But the show reviews successful
So the master restful lies
And the blazing wooden puppet
Feeds the fire as it dies

Did you try to tell me something?
For the hour's now grown late
And the something that you said
Is now lost and out of date
Did you try to tell me something?
I didn't listen, couldn't hear
All the words from puppet masters
Were crammed deep into my ear

Did you try to tell me. . .?

Did you try to tell me. . .?

You love me?
Well that makes one of us

When you've burst from the dark and back into the light
And the feel of the world feels once again right
It isn't as though you can see what you were
Once you've shut up those memories tight.

I've had a long stint on this planet
They sentenced me to life
But the charges were for things that happened
Long before I was born
Tell me if that's fair

And again there’s the flubbering
My hands like birds with broken wings
My words like birds with broken legs
Take all of me, have all of me
Unscrupulous though the scruples of my mind may be
Take all of me, have all of me
You and me and a pup makes three
And I’m fumbling, flailing, failing
As I fall deeper down this rabbit hole called
Mutual esteem

Roads like yours, they end in lakes
Cars go riding in the deep, deep blue
Stalling out in submerged concrete
And I've been awake too long
The lakes form in my eyes
And swallow up the cars
That traverse this long, long road

Here's to the lovers we've known in the past
And here's to the friends whom we thought we'd make last
Here's to those in both camps, and here's to those in none
Here's to the words said that can't be undone

Turbulent calm
I drift darkly on your words
The subtlety of language and the
Way you paint your worlds
How privileged, I, can be brought in
Led by your silver tongue
May I ever venture here,
With you, Janet Snakehole

There are bottles on the floor but it's best to drink
with low center of gravity right now and
what's lower than the floor?
And it might be floor level
but it levels the playing field and I feel
like I can rush the players and
play right into the hands of my angry god.
My angry god has dreadlocks and smokes;
Don't ask me if it's ****--he's never shared.
My angry god wears button-down shirts,
the Hawaiian kind.
He drapes the shirts over his bony, lanky body
My angry god forgives me for the things I
don't remember doing, and laughs at the things
I do.
My angry god picks up the floor bottles and
tells me I can turn them into glasses
"recycle, reuse," he tells me
And I tell him the cycle of use repeats
and my feet shuffle close to him, wanting
to pat his shoulders but he's shouldered
my responsibilities and I can't add weight
so wait--
My angry god's hands are smudged with
dirt and ink and oil
like the prodigal poet, the blue collar lyricist
and he tells me not to worry
He tells me it doesn't matter
He tells me he's proud of me
And I don't have to prove myself to him
My angry god grabs my bottles and he
levels them
Emptying the playing field
"Sleep easy," he says
He tucks me in.

**** the rest of the world
I like when it’s just us together
Cos
They don’t know what we know
How we feel like
Two photographs that perfectly
Overlay to make a treasure map
We’re the map
We’re the treasure
And **** the rest of the world
Cos
I like when it’s just us together
And there’s no one
No one around
And we’re
The only important characters
In this
Narrative experience
And I feel you there in the dark
I feel you next to me
But sometimes the light cast shadows
And I think there’s shapes on my walls
They come to get me
Little puppets and string-dancers
Man, **** the rest of the world
Cos
You’re the world I wanna be in
And you’re the world I wanna die in
You’re the wonders
Ancient wonders ain’t old news
Modern wonders ain’t too new
And it’s just us two
Me and you
**** the rest of the world

I'll write you Russian Lullabies
on bagel menu paper
And I'll try to peek at numbers
to see sum of what adds up to what

"The Elba island you're standing on
King of sand, King of sea
Your real kingdom up and gone
subjected land-locked royalty

So take a bite of York, the New
And charge your equine at the horde
Make your stand where foam slaps land
Take your coffee black on board"

I don't know Russian Lullabies
though I heard the album once
I wanted to write you a poem
but my brain isn't writing these days

The vivacity of dulling senses
understanding life's expenses
here I sit and smile.

Tomorrow is a world away, and I've
no mind to leave this world
So keep me in today and let
all tomorrows wait—
there's something so ******
in commanding fate

“Everything is fine” and that’s not great
See, fine is what you leave on a car in a wrong spot
Punishment for where you shouldn’t be
Fine is the end after the signs
:S: Everything is fine
But it’s not great
And you see, I’d like to think I strive for greatness
I feel wrapped in a repeat
On a treadmill to nowhere
As the screens beside, around me
Change; teasing little lights that dance
Like a marionette, so too I dance
Or so it feels
Strings which tug and hold
S.S.D.D.; D.S. all fine.

And the shoe drops, filled to the brim with water
The shoe drowns, but I’m working the pumps
Keeping her afloat, keeping that shoe afloat
But she drops down , drifting, drifting
I’ve no galoshes but my feet are swamped and I can’t say anything
Never admit to cold feet, Dad used to say
Knee-deep in puddles and my only thought is “this is who I am”
My home-grown brand of comedy’s the life that keeps me living
And I’m laughing at the sound of me, laughing at my sight
Because the things I see and say and think
Are clowned up hard for me
A laugh a life and here I find
I’m laughing all alone
Wet shoes, wet feet, wet eyes
“This is who I am”
And I know it’s gonna be alright
I’m taking up the pumps
And the shoe that’s dropped picks up, picks up
Drifting off to sleep

Time's ticking like it does and that sentinel on the wall
Gives me moment by moment the pace to the fall
And the dominoes keep kicking like a line of Rockettes—
“What is the time? Mary Ann, check all your pockets!”
But the pockets are empty and so too are those bones
Then when push comes to shove, every tile intones
“Here are we spotted cards: all blank cogs laid to rest
You’ve been laid in sepulchers. Now come lay with the best”
But the pillow’s more tempting and heads will recline
On soft, swaddled goose down; the best rest is mine.

Tell me that you're dying
And I'll say it must be Tuesday
You've got a pocket full of holes again

And there's nothing in the sunset
Makes me think that I'd believe you
When you're walking 'cross my path again

Hey, it's been ages since we've talked, you know
Lives have started, stopped, and dawdled on
And I'm not the one you met so long ago
I'm not the one you lost or need
So hello, familiar stranger
Hello, hello, goodbye

You tell me that you miss me
And I say, "grab a phone book,
find the number that I never, ever changed"

You say, "absence makes you fonder"
But I've been absent most my life
And there's nothing from that that I've ever gained

It's been ages since we've talked, you know
Lives have started, stopped, and carried on
And I'm not the one you loved so long ago
I'm not the one you lost or need
So goodbye familiar stranger
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

I.
The backdrop changes before me and I think I am anew
To be anew, to be reborn, one must have been, at first
Have I been, at first?
Perhaps, and yet. . .

II.
I’ve not yet been here, quarterly
I’ve only been in passing
Sitting in the space of life
With fleeting moments lasting
See me and time we know the score
We know we’re not exclusive
Yet staying codependent makes
Our love affair abusive
Time wipes the scene and all is gone
And then it starts replacing
But I can feel the difference and
I see the lines erasing
There’s not much left that used to be
I point this out at will
But newness covers like a moss
The oldness dead and still
Perhaps I’m new, or not yet old
But I have seen the stage
Set with dirt and wood and rock
And ink upon the page

III.
Do I think I have agency? Perhaps I do, but then
It seems I start to do something and do something again
And the old that was repeats itself with new baubles and bells
Dressed up nice, repainted, and the old as new resells
Do I think I have agency? Perhaps I don’t, and yet
I’d rather play my fight with Fate than lie down dead, I bet
And the predetermined actions I will act out as a player
The Game of Life’s veneer shall soon obtain another layer

IV.
There’s a war within this corporeal host
And there’s not yet a clear winner
There’s half that’s fed, half that’s naturally stronger
Brute force and technique
Jesse and Cass, and the sun might be coming
But who will burn?

V.
And of course it ends here, because of course it always had to
The crisis, this crisis, dressed up as though it were something new
There’s nothing new that comes from me:
I am derivative.
See me in the words of giants, see me in the spittle of groundlings
I will bind, with my arms I will bind
Feel them as vines, wrap around you and press
Girth upon your body
A bound book we shall be, and I will bring you to the well
Down shall we fall, Prospero’s tome, bound book’s tomb
I will bind you.
And in the absence of binding I shall seek you out
I will gaze for your eyes in a crowd:
Brown, blue, green, hazel, gray
Feel them upon you as a microscope, focusing
I shall find you.
Though with finding and with binding,
two shall join as one
Can there be two alone as one?
For the two exist as funhouse mirrors of
Past experience current
There will never be another one quite like
The other one you were quite like
The other ones you’ve been quite like
‘til now
And so with arbitrary electus tempus
Now is not the same
Today is but the only day
Today is not a copy of
The days that came before.
And of course it ends here.
Where else could it have begun?

All those tell-tale signs of being sad and I think that I’ve been
I wake up late, start sleeping late and that’s just how it is
‘cos there ain’t no deeper meaning to existence ‘cept to be
And I’m being and just being ain’t the way to be for me

And I feel less of me's still part of me and more of me's just gone
There's some of me left bottled and the streetlight's shadow turns sundial until
It's time to go time to go time to get up and leave it behind
Bottles left at bus stations, maybe you've seen 'em
But I sure don't know what happens when some one comes 'round to clean 'em
Well see the bottled bits of me still me
I left behind in Fullington and there's
miles of road between us and the grass
looks awful green over there and there
but I'm walking the asphalt, cracked and
holy like my path of redemption to lose
myself not find myself
I'm not playing hide and seek, no I'm
playing hide and Hyde, got a bottle for the cure-all
That I've shoved myself inside
And I'll drop it in my pocket, so take a gander there
Tell me what you see in me, in the bottle's curly hair
I used to think I was the coat but now I see I'm rodent
This rat's just sniffed the catnip, now he's belly-up and bloated
That's not my path, that's not for me, so tie my little feet
Heave-**, heave-**
And off I go
Wrapped in that corduroy
Heave-**, heave-**
And off I go
Nothing but a stupid boy

Tie up your newspapers
Throw down your caps
Settle in deep
For the rat-tatat-taps

Think awhile, drink awhile
Leave your brain in the sink awhile
For a while it will be before I’m back again
And a while you must stay, apart from me, my friend

So tie up your newspapers
Throw down your caps
Settle in deep
For the rat-tatat-taps

I know what it is to be tasteless
I've seen past the fountain of youth and
I've drunk of those ripened peaches
I've lain me down in heather

Stay by my side through this
sobering experience;
I know what it is
And I know
I am it

There are faces in my memory that haunt me when I dream
But my mind won't dream that often so the faces stay asleep
And while I'm just snoozing daily all these faces reappear
And carve trees in my subconscious 'til the branches all fall down
I've got house enough for Eeyore, I've got switches set for beatings
Half-assed greetings in first meetings 'cause being social has me retreating to the comfort of not-knowing-people and the comfort of I'm-stuck and there's ease in being doubtful being warped and bent inside
I ain't easy, so they say, and I'm inclined to agree
I ain't easy, we all know, and it ain't easy thinking me

There are loads of things you feel you’ve said and I see the lights inside your head but the truth is half the things you say are said to someone else
and I know it’s not your fault that you forget
but you can’t pretend I can’t be hurt
by the way you interchange me with another little flirt
and maybe they aren’t flirting with you maybe they just want to talk but tell why’d they lean in close and whisper “wanna take a walk”
maybe my eyes are just deceivers false-believers little whisper-catching reapers that twist the way your lips contour and save that mp3 corrupted but I can’t just help but notice the whispers aren’t interrupted
you don’t think I see because there’s nothing to see and they aren’t taunting me because I’m nobody so show me ‘round like your prize-pet-pup and let those fellas lift me up and measure me with every eye from every angle biceps to thighs and let ‘em see they could take me and put me down with two swift jabs but know I’m downed already; stick this rat back in his lab

Can't you see the bodies falling?
Tra-la-la-la-la
The moon is deep and dark this evening
Can you see its limbs?

Drop me down that shaft of light
And see if I can swim
If I scamper back again
Don't tell me I'm like him

I recently finished a "collection" of "short stories"
It's really garbage and if you'd like to waste money, you'll find the info below











. . . But it is very bad so don't do it.

It wasn't that his wax was gone, nor that he fell from sky
'twas holy flames of divine wrath made foolish child die

I've seen the fires of heaven
And the swirling flames of hell
Both are warm and frightening
And neither holds me well

Upon the breast of Satan
There's pinned a copper star
His wings are dead and broken
He calls me from afar

Upon the head of Jesus
There sits a thornéd crown
His feet and hands are pierced through
He tells me to lay down

I see my little brother
Walk barefoot the line between
His hand beckons my presence
To a place I've never been

I've seen the flames and fire
And I've seen a chubby hand
The more I see of each I find
I'm not prepared for the other land