In those days
I lost myself
in questions of god and ***; I pleaded
guilty
of searching
for truth until
I asked, "What is truth?
Who am I?"

lilli, lilli, lilli,
now sacred and independent of mother,

all new
to be caught up in this cycle again?
the doors were many,
the keys were few,

and now you’re here in my arms,
the arms of an uncle’s friend
visiting objectively,
wondering
if some day you’ll wonder
why you’re here
and wondering
what might cause such thoughts to surface
in your pure, unadulterated mind.

let this be our answer.

mother of seventeen
to grow old and fat and unfulfilled
violated the pact she will soon teach you
and later repented and kept you.

father of seventeen
to grow desolate and disconsolate and cold
valued not himself
and will passively teach you to follow suit.
but you must not follow suit.

lilli, when you are of seventeen,
will life be worth living?
or will you hand your own infant to an older poet
who whispers in its ear,
“perhaps if you had never been born?”

The deed is done; it’s over now.
It had to come out
somehow.
And how the stars shine
brighter now,
out sixty miles from town

and all alone.


You are
You were
(check whichever fits best)
my dearest darling whitest,
the only one I could trust.

Now,
as the dew succumbs to frost,
I begin to fully understand what I’ve lost.

I prayed for love
and received love.

Dear god, you’re scaring me.

To think we’d never speak again
or you would set me free
if, by chance, I disagree!

Why must I hold my tongue?
I’d like to change my mind, but still
my heart is a smoking gun
and changes for no one.

And as I watch you come undone,
in your eyes I’m as good as gone,
and everything I’ve worked for means nothing
to you anymore.

I’m out here in the cold;
my life is over;
I can tell I’ll never know a home,
save what I knew before I told you.

I’ve thought on this for years on end.
I’ve lied until my will was spent;
the lie I’ve known since birth is dead.

While I watch you come undone
and shrink and shrink until you're gone,
everything that I held dear
is meaningless now, I fear.

All you've given me
is smoke and mirrors.

70 mile per hour, one-way nighttime highway;
cars still **** past.
some with one headlight,
     but most with none,
          but all with horns, horns, horns
blaring, "Bryan! Your brights are blinding me!"

Old 50's culture pitches me his deceitful realtorality from the passenger's seat,
assuring me all is picturesque clean
when,
     in fact,
behind his plaster hair
and plastic smile
and porcelain eyes,
disaster lies- a land mine.

Bombs-BOOM-bombs explode coldly,
leaving none to not witness fulfilled prophecy
and say,
"He's dead.
He's really, really dead."

dedicated to the mirror of the shadow of my former self.

8:25 A.M.

step in late.
the eyes,
the eyes,
exceptional in eye shadow
find mine,
or perhaps i was looking for them,
and i realize
how distracted i’ve been
by my new summer coat,
but now
the eyes are relentless,
the eyes do not blink.
the eyes are omniscient,
the eyes will not sleep.
now that i’m
face to face with fate,
a captive to the eyes
that supposedly convinced me
that all
         faith
                       is
                        blind,
one half second suffices
to make hell
now something to be strived for,
and heaven twice the myth.

and near those eyes,
the face,
the face that infected a thousand consciences
stands by, silently
begging for a command,
its latest fix up on its favorite neurochemicals;
the face,
the face that screams satisfy
for the member that skull-****** a million subconscious desires!

or,
       perhaps,
         he’s a mirror.

9:05 A.M.

and i, the mind,
the only man wearing a collared shirt
in this barren company,
plead for recognition;
to make an impression;
to grab the attention,
scribbling in slang
for hate
            or,
        perhaps,

            triu­mph!

the eyes
beam blistering illegitimacy
into the mind,
unawares and
unintentional.
i make the silent error.
still, the face
chokes out a weak
“hey,”
where there was once cold callous.

definitely a mirror:
opportune moment,
easy catch
while the eyes still wonder:
“standards?!
what the *hell are those?”

of all faiths, his
                 is
                            blindest.

12:00 P.M.

away,
away,
away, away,
unto the scarlet heat of day,
with winter boots on sunbaked clay,
away,
away,
away, away,
away, away, away
from malady of present way:
the lonely path, too late to pray,
“erode your blessing’s granite sway
away!”
away,
away, away.

but affectation stays not long
as the face has just found out,
contorted, cried, and bellowed shouts
and in the mind’s eye, belted songs.
first contact in eighteen months;
he says:

“it’s you, weakling, you
first source of all my pain!
worthless, worthless,
perverted, scheming,
evil source that
ruined my life!”
definitely a triumph.
“or
perhaps
enhanced it,”
say i.
“herman,
i observe
you’re not so weak
as once i thought,
and half as meek
as last time i heard you speak.
away.”
away,
away, away
unto much cooler, peaceful days.
for now, i’ll put my summer coat
away.


1:57 P.M.

step in late.
no eyes,
no eyes
filled with hate.
no fears,
no fears,
no heavy weight.
no tears,
no tears,
for the day grows late.
today i committed sacrilege:
i tried to sanctify this date.
today i blasphemed against the
holy human mind.
i eschewed the natural anesthetic of time,
and repented of a baseless crime.
the eyes,
the eyes are in my sight,
yet out of mind,
and cannot last for long,
for the many hands,
the hands that rip and tear asunder
will render limb from limb
so desperately trying to
save her from
each other!

Hold me up to the sun and it becomes clearer
I'm counterfeit:
I clip my style from trashed magazines.
I've built a persona from bricks without straw.
Hold me up to the sun, and
you'll find no watermarks.

Too much, the number of days spent
                            wasting away
learning how to
                            not waste away
and then
                            wasting away
                                                    the next day
                                                                          anyway.

Too far, the sum total of all those futile miles,
running toward "a better tomorrow"
and then having
                              a better next twenty minutes.

Too hopeless, now I cast
the past's ashes into the air
and subsequently wallow in them.