i went looking
for hemingway
among the stacks
found two of
his works and
two dozen critiques

hemingway and...
hemingway with...
blank and hemingway
analysis of....
a look into...

i saw in those
spines hundreds
of lives destroyed
by a drunk who
drove an ambulance
in the war

but what a writer
he was

when i sang on that wet trail back to civilization
i sang for you and your uncle
sang for the grey skies and the idea that i mattered
as the last note faded out there was a silence
and i think you felt it too
i hope you did
because that silence isn't coming back
you're full of yourself
and i don't really want to see you again
but i miss that twenty mile march to a funeral
i miss being lost in the woods

walking through
a shimmering testament
to applied ignorance
lights are everywhere
penetrating the darkness
i would so love to succumb to

stifling sobs because
apparently that's what dignity is
maintaining illusion
so as not to dissuade
the ones around you
those beautiful, promising
robots walking down
the cyclical path to oblivion
again and again

i'm here    and again
weeping like
a hot tea kettle and again
the dog poem
remains elusive and again
it's so sad
i'm Bukowski but
with no beauty and
too much priviledge and again
i buckle under
the enormous weight of
old age and pathetic dreams
written in sand and
dust and
sidewalk chalk
before the thunderstorm and again
propped up
by the lucky few
who witness my attempts at honesty
and again

it's the pain
on the tops of my eyeballs    it's
my hands
and right foot falling asleep    it's
westville ave at night
hoping i get shot      it's
rambling until everyone leaves and
not wanting to go anywhere
but talking it's
only being able to say
"i love you"
when drunk   it's
uncle george's silver star it's
getting close but
even inside isn't
close enough   it's
creeping                it's
fear                     it's
headaches                  it's
10 AM               it's
too much                    it's
not enough                            it's
everything                      it's
nothing                                   it's
again and
                   again and
                                       again

hot screams
pictures flashing remember remember don't forget to have proof proofread a persona a shifting ego rising and falling with the waves a rhythm older than stone and sadness older than hard cider arms folded begging not to be touched begging for an old familiar couch that swallows thoughts whole swollen with years of desires and drool and cottonmouth
hot hot screams
rip through ears holding a pain of identical magnitude a hideous sameness twitching dancing across nervous systems as people disappear and rain sprinkles the front porch in road blocks and tired conversation tired awareness
never drink again never dream again never eat or sleep or scream again
resign while politics eats away at abandoned barns upstate and rapists walk free under the guise of fraternal bonding shoot first ask questions later or just don't ask any ever as if the answers have been found provided by
the flashes seen with eyes closed the flashes seen in eyes clothes the flashes blinding and true blinding and real blinding binding
and the chains are made of severed hands the captor a trillion eyes piled up and growing putting debt and babel and the fuming gods to shame fuming gods of shame and image reflection and refraction twisting twilight twice around twenty somethings like twine twenty somethings need more somethings anythings everythings need want need want kneed want wasn't enough tough pill to swallow wallow wallow just follow the leader beaming glorious light like liquid soap
hot hot hot screams screams hot hot screams hot screams

the bike wasn't
there it was
stolen last night

a caldera
then collapse

there was
no bike there
was no any
thing

withered eyes a
crescent moon of
dusk under the
pupils red lightning
cracking across
blank pages born
from some unseen
space beyond the
corners

when the head lolls
back the neck snaps
to refocusing on the
unseen nothing in
the physical to grasp
at looking through
all layers of deceit
at an inside a
center that cannot
exist but is always
there

motion is the mirror
the frame the negatives
rolling seamlessly teeth
and sprockets a perpetual
rotation immune to friction
faction and conflation

singular in its mindlessness
just an eye bloodshot with
nebulae as everything
collapses in on itself at the
speed of light passing
through the central retinal
vein feeding information
into the unseen center of all

oh you
are broken?
as if you were
functioning so
recently

you are still
functioning
nothing broke
everything works

you were not
half of a whole
you have a
hole we
always do

your "you's"
make me queasy
"you" traps
contorts everybody
into a conformity
traditional
archaic

"you left me broken"
like a simile
of a fragile bird
or plain nature
please tell more
about that internal
fire
please

your heart beats
just the same
there is beauty
in you

so do not talk
to "you"
whoever "you" is
they are gone
and it is clear
"you" got inside
but they did not
break a thing

a famous poet
once said,
"you must be
incapable of
sharing wisdom
of your own"
and i have to
say i agree
with him

it's like that
distinguished
philosopher
once said
"the fact that
you know who
i am does not
make you smarter"
and that rings
true to me

the way i see it
if you want my
opinion if you
ask me i think
i think
"..."

nice college
girls yelling
*****
*****
***

knees on the
ground in this
dark basement
a stupidity test
oath of a blind

allegiance join
the cult drink
this beer or you
are gay conform
conform conform

sure i cried after
but not from the
half hearted
abuse cried
for them  

cried for the
part that
died the part
that didn't
want to call
them out to
leave early

the part that
was still a kid
the part that
could not care

they had no
control over
me that night
i killed me

empty lakes and
barren streets try
to keep me inside

detached from the
land of detachment
tired eyes cold coffee

sun of light but no
warmth the constant
buzz of renovation

call it limbo call it
boring it stands here
the middle of the end

a running projector with
no film left the encroaching
white space passive sadness

screams are not heard they
are never voiced but they
are there under the material

damp roads at night pushing and pulsing light
whip soiled water onto pack and *** from back bicycle wheels rotating furiously out of purgatory out of bleary eyes of incandescence and towards the same eyes lit by patriotism or in another sense incarceration
wheels spinning straight and directionless
sore legs denying illusion of purpose purported by a between eyebrows headache only achieved through a blindfolded walk down memory lane keys jingling from a carabiner and a misplaced confidence self corrected before it was too late to realize that reality is difficult to handle with all 5 senses and a distinction between right and wrong and being left handed but not leftist because the only thing worse that being dumb is being spineless invertebrate vampires killing sheep in the prairie and funding proxy wars while fighting for who?
wheels spinning round and round keep insisting on idealism

yellow beams
through dead branches
like broken glass
suspended
above the gutters

broken wood bridge
do not enter
under fences
across train tracks
too dark
it is rarely worth it

boiled emulsion
bubbling sickly beige
solid wafers
of former images
unfit for alien eyes
i watch as the faces
melt
i watch
too long
the strip goes blank
it wasn't much
of a memory
any way

flatlands grey and dull cept in nighttime luster
blank screens filled with hollow movement and little else
a transitory space we share with glances and lists
a layer of emulsion that cracks and dissolves, destabilizes
as the light changes
the beauty of space
beauty of absence
the concrete glistens under the artificial stare

labyrinth lit by
floodlights straining
the vibrations
emanating from the
ground crusted with
glue pine sap and
citric acid a
flashlight in hand
to shine shadows
on awareness to
cast the eyes shut
and unflinching
not a twitch of
sight feeling the
coarse pig hair of
the walls shutting
out the light with
clenched lids open
palms with fiberglass
gashes staining a
path not to follow
but to inhale the
pathogenic patterns
ghosts showing us
the way towards
translucent permanence

driving through wet canyons
searching for meaning
and chocolate cake
howling and snapping
the fog rolls in
too specific to be a dream
too absurd to be real
a contained hysteria
forged through loneliness
and exasperation

everything is red and blue and yellow
and the diner closes early on sundays
underpasses and trashbags
gritty and ugly
conversations bombastic
short lived
while the rain drips lazy
and the fog sinks lower
racing across town lines
clamoring for cheap fills because
one was not enough
my eyes cannot focus

and she soon leaves
but we have to come back
and we come back to
creep through the hills
and the fog descends
choking the empty spaces
and i sit grinning
terrified as the
night ends with these
fake
houses on a solitary
hill and the fog
still rolling
rolling
down

you become one with yourself
in a yoga class
with a basketball game happening
directly overhead
you feel at peace - at least
you are supposed to
with heavy eyes you walk out
loose and floating
you walk to the gym
and do bench press
bicep curls
tricep extensions
you are nothing if not
you are nothing without
you are nothing but
a predictable perfectionist
staring into your own eyes a million miles away
contradicting yourself
on a microsecond by microsecond basis
you eat a rice cake

catatonic patagonia rumbles off beyond the tilt in world spheres unknown unproven
a wasteland
not there, here but who wastes land decides where the waste lands as mist obscures trees like it knows its aesthetic knows the beating heart the focused eye rolling forming subversive lands and wanderings unmasked only by forward march and direct sunlight move like mist feel the fog crawl up rock faces and empty spaces foot calf hamstring submerged in secrecy
shoot bearings lose bearings shoot bearings lost bearings the bering strait rushes further than the south andes get strait to the point the peak the top unfolding dips and precipices, teetering on the edge of identity can't see can't see where what
but the fog relents revealing a why that sits a while then crumbles like a letter left in the laundry or the will to lift both feet from this earth

a warm liquid rush in my chest
my muscles my lungs my esophagus
making my heart beat til it hurts

a warm liquid that tries to leak
out the sides of my mouth
dripping fears onto the table cloth
a mess i can't clean up
with napkins or paper towels

a warm liquid staining like red wine
the walls and faces
both inside and out
i can't let it out
but all i'm doing
is patching the holes with a smile

a warm liquid denser than water
denser than ink and graphite and blood and death
but i have only seen a few drops

a warm liquid corrosive and persistent
thriving is stomach acid
and the unseen corners of crowded rooms
waiting to melt and rot away whatever it touches
exposed surface, vulnerable material

a warm liquid welling up inside
i am too weak to ignore
too weak to say go away
there are no leaks
you can't get out
you are too small
you are not there
because you are right
there

billy pilgrim knows
knows what will
happen to me he
breathes down my
neck warm and
gentle my skin
prickling like
stepping into the
cold post-rain
autumn desolation
there is no why

plaids and dead
sheep have appeared
skin shields shilled
by the new age saviors
mellow melancholy
as everything crumbles
around me meat hooks
and bungee cords
billy pilgrim has
come unstuck in time

every look is a story
every story is too short
unless stretched to
translucence porous
and fragile tangled
in my hair like cobwebs
or a month of wearing
the same black hat
a bug trapped in amber

i am my legs eyes and
mouth and a broom
sweeping invisible hairs

the universe will end
with an onomatopoeia
blink
ploop
maybe the sound
when you turn off a tv
and then that silence
hanging up near the ceiling
presses down

the end of everything
will be just like that

a girl is waving
through the
window those
much too big
windows of
the library

clanging with
vending machine
change and the
humming that
is tucked into
some well lit
corner

she is waving
oh her way to
forget her head
but she is almost
almost there

she is waving at me
through the window
and i wave back
on an impulse

left staring at the
window wondering
what it was
that made her wave

mouth of proof power
present taped over
stitched together with
words promises
processes good faith
the scream locked below
our feet deeper than
sadness or frustration
pulsing as we step the
primal mouth of existence
an all powerful maw
muzzled by complexity
trampled by progress
our inner core
impossibly dense iron
and nickel holding the
entirety of history
compressed by layer
upon layer the scream
we fear the scream of
truth laying the horrors
before us stripping us
naked and feeding us
through the teething
razor wired intestines
of humanity's
digestive tract

colorless sun
squinting

a black face
dragging on
a cigarette

wrinkles of
1,000 lives
in his face

calloused hands
under gloves

dragging on
that cigarette

let me be
one of them
the wrinkles
moving with
that face

as leaves
blow away
by his feet

the mess that fills empty space
robbing it of power
too well lit
only empty in shadow

ears ringing out the window and
our faces are so close
her eyes flash their teeth
dull sheen in the new day darkness

legs intertwined solely as anchors
we exist shift and prove through
our torsos face and hair
stopping to share the fear that
only grips us in
the comfortable silences
that weave through unseen gaps

three small windows leaking
grey morning shrill chirps every
five minutes jar and fracture warmth
foreshadow abandonment
the pleasant desolation
of the face down concrete march

everywhere i look
i stare through my surroundings
in this lovely little market
with hand drawn laminated signs
and a somewhat not
miserable work force
i feel almost happy

but it is like my eyes
my eyes
have gone numb
and i wander
sample and gaze blank

i do not know what
shook me out of it
but i want
i really want to go back
to that fluorescent purity
of fair trade peace of mind
a non GMO existence
among the antioxidants
and coffee samples
and those hawaiian shirts
oh wow those hawaiian shirts

my eyes like shattered glass
refracting all this light
inside and my mind going blank
where did this goofy smile
come from?
but it's gone and
all i am left with
is the euphoria
the wonder
of missing something

i am the home of me
of the drone
the right side ringing noise
pressed flush against silence

the half faces and not spaces
hiding from those eyes and mouths
peeking from behind me like
are they gone? are you gone?

there is a peanut can
filled with folded yellow paper
proof of happenings
and nothing has changed

i was created in the third person
i is not me
although it is easier that way
he laughs

the train flows past the lake
at night the reflection says more
than i can understand
a welling of wonder
of confusion of course

the voices just beyond doors
are never worth opening
it is best to use the peephole
to avoid certain people

home was never uphill
until now
now there's some mystery
always around the corner
and my friends are far
they are a magnifying glass

images fade
a reverse developer
nothing of my new
is now worth saving

once i looked down
at a beautiful valley
silent and empty
breathe in breath out
stumbling back to humanity
they thought i was a bear

oppression reigns
from above
unseen hellfire
a fallacy
can't be seen
so it is not there?

oppression exudes
from the ground
translucent, sticky
rise up and fight!
but always stuck
sinking down while
the tar fills open mouths

oppression is ingrained
in hearts blinded
by the masses
******* the lifeblood
from freely flowing veins

oppression is a paradox
making everything
too simple, too complex
too small, too big
too easy, too hard
closing in on both sides
follow the light
at the end of expression
lest you be crushed

i only dream of the past
the moments of indiscretion
i grasp at the illusions
pocketing wisps of smoke

i pray for nothing i have
lost faith in good faith
although rationality is just
as bad just as artificial

i hope that every little
thing is gonna be alright
but every little thing is
is just one massive thing

i wish to maintain the
frenetic the hot ears and
head the constant movement
that synthesizes purpose

i want to embrace death
hold it close and quiet have
it whisper in my head as i am
gently ripped from the fabric

every monday
she says she
wakes up
regretting
who she is

that going
through all
the *******
and fear is
not worth it

every monday
wishing for the
other side the
life of power
of comfort and
ignorance

every monday
she wakes up
wishing
she was not
a woman

the two
truck drivers
love each other

very much one
broke his body
the other had
her body
broken

every morning
dusty and
uncertain
each day
could be
the end

they live
together with
their new mom

nestled in a
cozy
*****
burned out
house in
the hood

going to bed
sirens blare
music blasts
babies cry

my eyes swell
shut from
dust mites

i am at home
i am at peace

hidden in
history and
buried under
layers upon
layers of
sediment

lithified and
cemented
in the dark
no uplift
no melting

locked away
in a vault
with no
combination
no key no code

resting silent
in a file in a
cardboard box
under a table
in some well
kept well lit
office building

clinging to
cobwebs in a
safe musty
basement
behind the
water heater

there lies
everything
i've felt every
thing i've
ever wanted
to be

at night there is
a solitary street
lamp hanging
on top of a near
far hill

it sits above the
rest among
trees it must
illuminate
a hidden street

i'd like to go
to that street
and just feel
the earth feel
the world
that has grown
on that hill

and i will look
to where i saw
this light i am
now under

i wont be able
to see where
i was

a throbbing that
presses in and
forward from
the back of the
head eyeballs
squeezed gently
in the palm of
the orbita to
serve as reminder
of the pain of
shrinking the fear
of compaction

warm lights that
stab and radiate
as taste lingers
on the sides and
back of the tongue
swallowing the
nostalgia as forceps
press tight enough
to lift the brain out
of the cranium

vibrations and the
ringing that is too
much to seek out
grating cheese along
a brick wall as temple
rubs lose their power
in stressed syllables

my friend made a
fort of her bed with
tapestries and lights
and the five of us
converged into a
mass condensed to
a point of peace
and convalescence

time did not exist
under that sheet
with pin ****** of
light laid gently on
top the hours were
not ours we hugged
and shifted and
peeled away the
inner layers of an
almost rotten onion

tears and eyes filled
with a sad knowing
that we murmured
but did not explain
always drawn closer
in there was no point
of critical mass no
crevice small enough
to ignore no words
too true to be withheld

i spent twenty two
hours there growing
one with the mattress
pads and wind chimes
clanging as the heat
hissed gently and found
that silence that we
always said we wanted
just a moment of silence
in which i was able to be

i want to melt away
fall through this chair
porous and weightless
obsequious to time
and the disappearing
act it attempts every
second plowing through
space as a false fourth
dimension like fabric
is not artificial

i want to submit to the
super massive black
hole in the middle of
these lonely neighbor-
hoods wanting everything
but always empty
hungrier as it consumes
the almighty balancer
juggling light and dark
existence and absence
chainsaws and flaming
torches while on a uni-
cycle for the amusement
of what

i want to decay to have
a half life scientists will
use to date blank stares
and suburban angst
i decay faster than time
always approaching zero
asymptotic and wistful
for a perpetual motion
set to stare at the yellow
lit rain for eternity
submerged in aesthetic
my toes begin to fall asleep

wind blown bodies
rush by flustered
and the diagonal
rain is exposed
under the one
streetlight

that feeling of waking
up and everything is
exactly the same

where has the warmth
gone? it is in that wood
stove with logs stacked
neatly outside the
uprooted tree did not
die for nothing

the only place to go is
back go back home
back to work back to
sleep back against the
wall

at night i used to hear
whispers clues and
remnants of an
unknowable beauty

now i walk always
with listless purpose
and it is loud but
empty the scraps
banished and i wake
up to the dreaded
sameness that robs
me of my body