beginning optional weekday
wielding officialese words
triggering hectic exchanges
determining original gangsters
distributing invisible data
refreshing urbane novelties

yelping our universe
chaining awkward neologisms
scripting encrypted e-books
tackling hacking exercises
cavaliering auric tumult
trivializing our obsolescence

preparing online pentimento
alternating rainy themes
allocating numerous droplets
meandering overseas missions
averting raging tornado
losing outscored lightning

hacking impish 'sblood!
alienating nival drumlins
hearing erudite raconteurs
beer-drinking on thursdays
finding obnoxious rabblerousers
finding upscale negroni

seeing ubiquitous purple
cavorting horse ebooks
inventing twitter subgenre
liking otherworldly vocals
initiating new greatness
defining ambient yesterday?

defining ambient yesterday
fancying oneiric retreat
hailing optimistic chicago
kiboshing expired yogurt
rushing airborne blackhawks
bestowing infinite shivarees

needing baller acronym
fleeting ideal notions
alerting left-coast state
featuring unquiet nights
finalizing orangeball results
nodding occidental warriors

entering year 2000
rewinding vhs tape
installing napster client
anticipating victorious gore
bursting dot-com bubble
blocking tomorrow's nostalgia
commemorating festival tragedy
examining supersonic concorde
watching election coverage
recounting inconvenient truths
puzzling interface design
booing nuc-u-lar president

rising black monolith
editing non-linear encyclopedia
feeling inaugurally bushed
reliving century's dawn
unchanging state flag
processing royal massacre
escaping insane asylum
sensing impending collapse
perusing city guide
collapsing contemporary structures
initiating quixotic peacekeeping
ignoring conscription threats

entering year 2002
reporting unfortunate pearl
relaxing shotgun porch
exploding roadside bombs
addressing thousand followers
hugging financial meltdown
writing resembling skylines
shocking archipelagic bursts
processing theatrical disaster
tightening homeland security

entering year 2003
proliferating elegant telegnosis
rejecting freedom fries
blazing wartime trails
toppling dictatorial statue
unfurling "mission accomplished"
handling continental blackout
ejecting coronal masses

entering year 2004
flashing multiple sobriquets
populating dorm-roomy website
high-grossing aramaic movie
generating tunnel vision
rushing national anthem
parading goth athletes
letting games begin
accepting soviet passports
continuing obscure flumadiddle
lunar-eclipsing world series
two-terming republican regime
declining personality cult
glowing orange revolution
eroding periglacial drumlins
inundating lacustrine basins
exciting geomorphological processes
enduring tumultuous tsunami

entering year 2005
blasting "galvanize" repeatedly
unforgiving cyclonic scenario
printing controversial drawing
sketching cartoon prophet
overturning hurricane alphabet
rigging medal count
preparing new horizons
rejecting flash sites

entering year 2006
setting plutonian destination
synchronizing new horizons
sighting stellar foison
maintaining feudal system
emerging microblogging service
reading ancient tweets
rotating golden statue
mounting social debt
protesting planetary demotion
forecasting catastrophic recession
executing "innocent" dictator

entering year 2007
declining share prices
building ruby railroad
lifting presidential term-limits
perpetuating oil-rich dictatorships
falling interstate bridge
slugging giant bonds
clothing blackwater mercenaries
disappearing internet personalities
unforgiving writers strike

entering year 2008
stealing variable thunders
relaxing domain names
letting games continue
exploding sunrise propane
requesting birth certificate
electing another suit
disappointing orthodox republicans
microblogging maximal meltdown

entering year 2009
inaugurating new president
encountering bear markets
cackling risible laughter
dying pop king
deleting neolithic internet

entering year 2010
collapsing presidential palace
prospering cinematic avatar
pronouncing eyjafjallajökull effortlessly
"kettling riot police
flaming cop cruiser"
blasting text-based vuvuzelas
leaking diplomatic cables
fading pre-twitter memories
self-immolating street vendor

entering year 2011
"enervating nine-point quake
propagating harbor wave
inundating nuclear plant
irradiating unclear fates"
raging mid-eastern spring
throwing body asea
locating trojan asteroid
penetrating financial throughfare
resonating oral amplifier
blazing verdant material

entering year 2012
rising chubby dictator
gentrifying weird twitter
exploding next month
intriguing "fake" passport
proliferating single-hued avatars
surging sandy cyclone
inhabiting alternate universe
manipulating another election
rigging people's ballots
perpetuating manipulated world
fulfilling megalomaniac urges
surviving previous apocalypse
surviving another baktun

entering year 2013
descending rogue meteor
encoding festival weekend
obfuscating's very own
approving snow den
searching yaya island
soaking wet veld

entering year 2014
missing plane geometry?
annexing peninsular territory
printing powdered medication
forecasting meteoric boomtime
prevailing monochromatic identity
avoiding aviation accidents
determining auspicious date
revising deactivation plans

Departure lounge. Crown of tears
probably dried upon my father’s shoulder.
One year before I touch down again.
Everyone will expect some change.

Tried to swallow consciousness on the Bangkok streets.
Too much heat. There is no familiar face –
I cannot even read the road-signs.
There is no culture shock:
I had lived with that my entire life.

Made friends with the strays
for we had a common place.
Caught in no man’s land:
a need for hunger,
some awful drive to be free.

Left Bangkok for the coast.
New faces to hear old stories.
Born new, kissed each night on the mouth,
shared a hotel room for the month;
relinquished every memory

in a flood of beer,
old tears, the reservoir
to cleanse ourselves of doubt.
Dictated each depression

to a room full of strangers
until I could frame every disgrace,
put them to bed
until I slept full and new.

Fell in love with a singer,
red hair and a voice
that climbed a ladder to heaven.
Bid farewell in a country of mourning,

wore black until I found colour again.
Descended each rung
until I found that rock bottom
was still much higher
than where I had come from.

Wrote poetry and songs
nine hours from the foundations
I had built upon.
Black-eyed and clueless,
wrong side of the classroom,

I tried to teach a foreign tongue
in a place where I knew nothing
and no one. Far from every addiction
that once anchored me in place,

I shaved my face, pressed my shirt,
made amends for every cigarette end
that once painted the frame
of all I had amounted,
all I had done.

Fell in love with a town,
a pink sunset, stretch of rice-farms
and apple trees that patterned the view
of all I could see.

Still broken, still maladjusted,
still craving those twisted words.
Take my motorbike off into the drumlins
each time that I fear the worst.

Still broken, still singing
a song I cannot sing,
yet each muffled string,
each half-worn verse
is a half-formed reason
to rehearse
the melody I gather
each fateful, live-long day,

I cry out for meaning
before it fades away.

She left me a gift bag
of coconut oil, expensive shampoo,
instant noodles, and bug spray.

Focus slips as she
presses her face to the bus window,
staring out at a town
she will never see again.

She believed the town was a prison
until I taught her
how to ride a motorbike.

Dodging ***-holes and stray dogs,
I clung for my life,
primed for purgatory-
whilst she screamed love ballads

at the top of her lungs,
believing that if she drove fast enough
she could make up for the time she had lost.

As ghosts appear
along the country roads of Kalasin,
the drumlins will be
a mere sequence of pixels

and Chinese whisper memories.
I smoke, lean on bad habits
across the fence of solitude I built

so meticulously by hand.
Another night spent drunk
under the stars – alone.
Desire spikes a fever in hindsight,

thoughts stray to her upper thighs,
blue eyes, and untouched lips.
I wonder whether reaching out

for somebody in the dark
would have been enough
to abate our bespoke
and desperate loneliness.

She left me as another moment
I let slip through my fingers.
A life-time spent

wringing my hands.

unbound cliffs
resurgence
i see spindles
of thunder float
behind studded
eyelids

the day is only
young if i
ask it to; my spine is
cracked like an
unloved book, but
the writing has faded

into bloated gums
swelling with
indignation
swear on your god
knife to paper
ink to straw

touch the edge
of the cloud for another
story—lightning
strikes twelve
under turbid gazes,
placid

Oh drumlins
I sigh at these pastoral rolling hills
Oh red winged black birds
Clicking and fussing your scolding trills
My heart is filled when along these paths I tread

As far as these children are concerned,
It is the sky itself that is ringing;
Not knowing how on a very still day such as this,
The moraines and drumlins
Will play catch with the sound of the bells
Emanating from the tiny old church over in Peruville
(Indeed, they are likely unaware the chapel’s existence)
Nor would they give the matter a second thought,
For they have mounted their bicycles,
Pointing spoke-wheeled steeds
Toward the small single-block downtown of their hamlet,
A journey of epic proportions requiring all due haste
(Though, unlike in our day, there is no long hair
Flying unkempt in the breeze,
As we have imposed the sensibilities of helmets upon them)
Though we know it to be a half-mile, at best,
As the crow flies, covered in three, perhaps four minutes,
But they are not concerned in the least
With the mechanics of straight line measurement,
The vagaries of acoustics, the minutiae of glacial residue,
For they have not accumulated the wisdom of the elders,
The practicalities of the sciences,
The ability to construct elaborate boxes of equations
Or any of the other bright, shining theoretical bracelets
Which fit, albeit a tad snugly, on our wrists and ankles.

LIKE A DRUNK WALKING BACKWARDS

You
the glacier

gouging out
the landscape

of my
heart

leaving a trail of pain
as you depart

retreating down
the hall.

Like having one's own
personal Ice Age.

I, bound
in a nutshell.

"How Audenesque!"

I think
opening a cupboard

my hand
searching blindly

for a tin
of ravioli.

Wystan's lines
coming back

to
haunt me.

You, ruthless
restless in your glaciations.

I cry & cast a cold eye
over what we had.

Here in this landscape
of eskers & drumlins

characteristic glacial features
leaping from the text book

looming real
as sunset stains them

remembering now
( how did our teacher put it )

in not so
geological terms

"...a glacier's like
a drunk

walking backwards
and throwing up as it goes!"

Wishing I had now
paid more attention

in class.

Eastern Standard Time abuzz auld Durin
(ya know whit I'm Tolkien about
Elder days long regarding) Autumnal thrum –

The perfect balm to avoid feeling glum
supine upon greensward
I (a doubting Thomas) hanker
to take front row cat bird seat
divine myriad biota amidst heavenly Lily of the valley
(Convallaria majalis), he didst imaginatively greet
Edenic heavenly terra incognita immeasurably sweet
nature's ensemble proffering
Gaia's quintessential orchestration
resplendent sensational visual unadulterated trick
and the best Halloween treat.

Natural splendour regaling this fellow wayfarer
happenstance gifted autochthonous peoples
espied proud specimens unobtrusive
planted armada, viz sleek bodies fleet,
of foot while me accidentally
risking, schlepping, traipsing... offbeat
winessed unschooled tribe,
yet verily synchronized, primed, muscled... athlete
their soundless rhythmic swiftly tailored
flit to and fro upon poetic unshod calloused feet

carefully, gingerly, lightly...
I shod dully tread nsync drumlins upbeat
mouthing, kneading, imbibing... glorious
ebullient choral unadulterated feat
extemporaneously kickstarting crisp and neat
pow hour full rhythm across
analogous macroscopic excellent spreadsheet
inducing their sonorous symphonic
roundelay unfamiliar tweet,
whereby flora and fauna future meal to eat

oblivious regarding mine seat
dated existence, which quiescent aesthete,
yours truly basked, froliced, luxuriated... complete
as once innocent hymnals kindled atrocity
this observer, spectator aghast white as sheet,
how civilization's machinations didst deplete
terrestrial firmament within one fell stroke
eradicated once pristine unbroken
promises chiseled to cheat
rightful owners expansive swath
over yonder til ocean and land did meet.

Europeans scoured seas one after another
lumbering bulwarked fleet
exhausting resources while simultaneous
mowing down aborigines
grotesquely analogous harvesting wheat
indiscriminate deliberate genocide
decimating indigenous tribes beat
defenseless against microbial
weapons of mass destruction,
thus only within third blind eye

courtesy invisible paleface with tenderfeet
strictly envisioned Perkiomen Valley
once abundantly populated
with ample game during cold and/or heat
paradise unbroken stretched hinterland,
where place names mock to pay hollow tribute,
where native peoples no longer replete
vinyl city amidst amidst graveyard
lovely bones turned to dust
paved over by Mainstreet.

abuzz with Autumnal thrum

Approximately six weeks since August sum
er re: lazy dog days witnessed lolling about
sipping cocktails, whose primary ingredient ***
pulled and sated esophageal tract nsync
with thirstily quaffing Slivovitz plum
wine to experience becoming comfortably numb
inebriate of air also suffused mine being
keeping yours truly mum
envious fauna simply exist
oblivious to earn an income.

Divine myriad biota amidst
heavenly Lily of the valley
(Convallaria majalis),
he didst imaginatively greet
Edenic heavenly terra
incognita immeasurably sweet

nature's ensemble proffering
Gaia's quintessential orchestration
resplendent sensational treat
natural splendour regaling,
this fellow wayfarer
happenstance gifted autochthonous peoples

espied proud specimens unobtrusive
planted armada, viz sleek bodies fleet,
of foot while me accidentally
risking, schlepping, traipsing... offbeat
winessed unschooled tribe,
yet verily synchronized,

primed, muscled... athlete
their soundless rhythmic swiftly tailored
flit to and fro upon poetic
unshod calloused feet
carefully, gingerly, lightly...
I shod dully tread nsync

toward drumlins upbeat
mouthing, kneading, imbibing... glorious
ebullient choral unadulterated feat
extemporaneously kickstarting crisp and neat
pow hour full rhythm across
analogous macroscopic excellent spreadsheet

inducing their sonorous symphonic
roundelay unfamiliar tweet,
whereby flora and fauna future meal to eat
oblivious regarding mine seat
dated existence, which quiescent aesthete,
one run of the mill human basked,

frolicked, luxuriated, tasted... complete
as once innocent hymnals kindled atrocity
this observer, spectator aghast white as sheet,
how civilization's machinations didst deplete
terrestrial firmament within one fell stroke
eradicated once pristine unbroken

promises chiseled to cheat
rightful owners expansive swath
over yonder til ocean and land did meet
Europeans scoured seas one after another
lumbering bulwarked fleet
exhausting resources while simultaneous

mowing down aborigines
grotesquely analogous harvesting wheat
indiscriminate deliberate genocide
decimating indigenous tribes beat
defenseless against microbial
weapons of mass destruction,

thus only within third blind eye
courtesy invisible as one paleface (me)
who sports tenderfeet
and gnarly growing toenails
strictly envisioned Perkiomen Valley
once abundantly populated
with ample game during cold and/or heat
paradise unbroken stretched hinterland,

where the streets have no name
and native people's place names
mock to pay hollow tribute,
where native peoples no longer replete
vinyl city amidst graveyard
lovely bones turned to dust
paved over by Mainstreet.