Hip Service
By Julian Malek

The zeal of cobblestone tolerance arrayed in fashionable hues masquerading as crimson secrecy, elevates the tide of man but some boats leak in their foundations. Therefore a cork to every exuberance and a triumphant torch for every sorrow lives onward in collective time. Larks that abound because prescience and PUGET sound, that brown has become the new orange which in turn prowls as a concealed swarthy black. To antagonize the willful and frenetic pace, a prodrome of lasting but memorialized disgrace. Should I move to a state by first or last name, or is the final appellation worthy of much more lasting fame. I scurry down the aisles, bemused by shimmering tiles and the beguiled audiences who see much in my limitation but doubt little about my debited elation. Ringmaster Barnum, how much horticulture is needed for assured superstardom, how many cloisters must we evacuate from the incendiary plumes of a metaphorical Harlem..  But know that no virtual reality can supplant the reality that does truly exist, or at least our time is too infernal and purblind to resist. Carrey the tops of mountains in the humor of wellsprings and fountains, we engage a menagerie of egos lilting of an etiolated pragmatic concern. Evicted from paradise, littered with say-cheese demise ensnaring three blind mice eaten alive by snake-eyed vice. To feel good without incorporated tyranny, we must see blue and red as alternatives to the same destiny. A world that reckons with the futilitarianism of pacified malcontent and astroturf monikers that lead the impressionable into a slaughter shed. Established or not, any enchantment under the sea must include fishes once a pastiche of me, but to them I avoid their courtesy flush and never even faintly blush as my egalitarian statements are lavish thrush.

Five TO Won baby one in 99, everyone here aboard the titanic stays alive, you got your boat baby and I got mine, gonna make it with babies numbered in surreal primes. Halt the slots game the nines, a stitch in time is going to turn out to be Mine. Flanger goals, girded piles, liminal like an aborted Harry Styles, we climb mountains we issue tithes, and the turmoil is etched into 45-notched bludgeons and two-tucked knives. Excuse you, where have you been all day, have you been sauntering in a gentle rain or a genteel pain, have you wallowed beyond the mires of doubt and ranked above David Blaine. I hope you tell me of your magic tricks, rather than your other flicks endeared I stand to fight an ineradicable itch. But if not, you placid pond dented by so many rocks and so many ripples give your heart over to me, before I clinch the special Olympics *******, we ran, we span the homespun garments of your left and right hand, but death is a specter that ghoulishly carouses along the carousel terminal disease we call life. I beseech your deepest affection and want to console you for your deepest struggle, to be there every time wed with time rather than a throttled scuttle. Moons make you guarded but maroons leave me desiccated, don’t ever let that wilted flower die, always water it with a rich but gentle ties and widened deck for all to at once marvel and pry.  Monsters of Mars Attacks once flanked my bed, as though the **** brain scared every gooseflesh and restrained every frisson of mystery. I lampoon myself for those cold Dark Knights and the protection ended by the plight of the poor mattering nothing to the deliberately internecine rich. I struck gold in a valley somewhere, an oxymoron of paradox that now you have the privilege to dock, to stay aboard to be a vessel of peace less widely deplored. Even if we don’t sprout wings, we garner the exactitude of measured things and our glass elevator though easily shattered by the glower of enslavement is actually our vista to heaven or listening to brethren tingles for rich mans trinkets and other things. For humanity deserves a legend and a princess, a regimented desuetude and a flanged lust but in our mistakes wildly flouted in momentary moments we become purified by the temptations of an alabaster palace.

***** the left-field wisdom of a pragmatic paragon ellipsis in prison, slip between the cracks and let my suburban muse become your urban ruse. To enchant a caged world beyond a reality delicately and deliberately unfurled. Squirming toads on highways enchanted but dead, are graves for the blue becoming purple in every dignified red. Gainsay assaults me with platitude, a repeated hitter quit on the first bunted ball into foul-line territory. Those gripes are swiped right in all circumstance no matter the plight. The pronged hearing of a trident sensitive to ambient collection, and suddenly we are all in the mad house even though the house of profaned pain is much worse. Glimpses of gambits that gambol for nickels in transit as occult grenades and known dice waddle through without artifice or device, and the laughter and slaughter that trains collegiate minds, differs no more than the tropes of a glamorous violence articled in sordid rhymes. This surfing movie means so much more than Surf Wax America pristine in limited but sacrilege nirvana. Teen spirits smell muskier than 90s pop dreams, the grasp and grunge of gouged eyes becomes a mummified staid, a scarecrow to those who disobey. Childhood flashes with blinding light, and new sight illuminates darkening blight, A blight eradicated only by two magazines and including one that houses the bullets that ***** themselves between death and comatose dreams both within astral sight. Littoral harbor on a seaside town, a shanty with a brackish gown that glides the gourmand to the cosmopolitan eatery on the outskirts of lost & found. But forever lost in embonpoint and forever gained in chavish that exonerates the gaunt, the etiolated prince in heart becomes irrefutable marrow in minded souls.

If I am a spy you are an ESPY, and if I cry than you are a baby,but since neither are the case my wiseacres will cultivate lava lamp dreams for a new generation and suddenly Boston bets on Harvard, but who knows of this piped blather squirming for relevance rather than voguish but temporary chatter. My regatta knows how to swim, my life now knows how to cringe and yet still win and in stilted plays of bungled sincerity the God of peace reminds us of our transcendent personalities. That we in sincerity top the barnacles of invention a novelty but a rarity. But the guillotine quill of emboldened unscripted parvenus ruthless in their eager dues, outdate and outlive the sued swayed blues that indemnify Clinton and make the atomic dog an amazing Winston hill a church often in sheltered disuse. Imps and urchins sting the sentiment, cloy the alimony of repentant betterment, but neither touches the gilded skies of pleonasm striving for raspy disguise as to dissuade further diatribe investigation. Lurking in those scared days of youth, the gore of unalloyed horror scourged me with a limp, that compassion itself could ever become a gimp. Now years later athletics better and scoring goals making the mildew sweat and the years wetter, not a global warming that can be alarmed by global mourning. Take peace at heart if distanced spears of separation make Idiocracy as a pastiche look exceedingly smart. And spar only with the true antagonists bridging malevolence with expedience. Killjoys sure, will joy even more sure, but still boys fluttered heart stopping dead at a stop-watched alarm the worst tragedy of our sordid sort. Give an African Child a real home rather than a spatial roam, a palatial desiccation of momentary Jonas Brothers snapping back at captives with sexualized foam.

Narrative blinds shuttered in an Island among mountains hardly ever wiser to sanitize the sanitarium among the wasps of stung power. Police crumple their uniforms as they prowl down the avenues, looking for misfits and widened platitudes. Somehow that the vigilance of those corrupted by their very career choice, look even worse when megalomania of private is the limelight of public, to their defense few turrets I can muster but castles in the sky will be the apartheid judge. Those that cling to virtue to eradicate Porsche-driven faked or real deaths at the most breakneck speed, that Fast & Furious operation if disclosed completely would turn the Shire of the ring into the hatred curtailed by a song in Sing-Sing. Immunity must not Yoda implore, that livery Liverpool marooned on islands can also to deplore the R.E.D. and still whet the sharpened stead and the fly-by-night Manchester United alights like militant peer pressure for wranglers in tights. But beating the Beatles at a game of Walruses and egg-shelled eyeful towers likely impedes rinkside hockey from anything over bellicose ballyhoo…it exists as a transient fixated glower. But who knows about soccer speculation when love is the transcendent temptation, when nest-egg hens rather than neglecting rig Bens of clockwork and clocked words designed arise better for their token ken. Do I must repeat the subtext of submarines, yellowed as though ugly unused as though unseen, as though the quixotic earthquakes of tintinnabulations Avatar dreams. Wafted souls console the disheartened thoughts of a dashed dream that Berlin hates more than a Furor’s unbridled and useless scream.
Demotic clips slinging from the bedridden silence of a token moon and its token friends, swimming in a shore of ambiguity whether history mellows or whether its furor melts away momentary doubts. I want to avoid the sting rays exorcised by due providence and become the amalgamated talents gentry and of course the upstart swagger of Jack Dawson. But with the psy-op going on, the people manipulated on all sides of a gray picket fence will the relationship bloom without muttered dissent or pretended smiles. Will we take upon the shuffled shuttle and dig with shovels deep-rooted Christmas trees and toast our lives to Dos Equis. We may never go out of style, but the treacle of illuminated imagery when divorced from sentiment bristle shows a swagger that prioritizes rather than amalgamates all love. I love being brash and brazen and honest because when she finally ditches the grandstand of delayed frenemies fandoms of other tinsel decorations without any substance beyond meretricious thrill. You want a roller coaster on some days, but most often you want the nutcracker to elope to secret hiding places. Swim with adventure not just in love, not just in affection with the starlight now matter how luminous, sixpence all the richer is no centuries any poorer and we could be that gilded couple of star and screen and if we ever have to scream, let our screams unite us in passion, rather than a milquetoast deference to pedestaled beauty. but of course the end times don’t laugh at your crumpled wizened relapse. Not out of convenience wed by a discriminating genetic harvest moon but a deeper engagement that flatters when stylish and bristles when romantic but never defiled, never riled of specious pretense. Promise me that you will always remember me in my flaws and my faults, in my scause factory destructions and the penults of PEN-ULTIMATE wisdom that comes before the grace of God in the annihilation of passion for eroded omission. If your goal is to be remembered, check that out…but the most admirable goal is as the propinquities of souls dusted in the wind returning to a spring equinox of passion and if you find in yourselves reservations do not depart from sacred land, and never jilt me because of a boisterous and menacing friend. You are everything to me right now, and I Hope this persists despite the vicissitudes of star-favored afflictions mixed with utter benediction without the pontification of stilted Benedictines  or rather the hyped ludic effrontery of termagants being made of younger and younger women. Leave it at this ,32 leaves the royal secret in royal hands and the Knights Templar and us we altogether hold hands, if only a prelude for a masquerade ball. But the stilted embarrassment of crestfallen time, let that be relegated and emphatically lets embrace what is like to not ever need a real white horse to get back into your favor, because we never go out of style we can brandish the best elements and reject the sentiments of the too newfangled and the too stodgy. We in our crenellated pleonasm can eager ride the lightning to another tomorrow and another yesterday and if even not that, we virtually make an indelible impression of embroidered love not too distant in ivory towers and not to vulgary( catering to popular sentiments) to become a trash glam movement. We soar, others deplore but let their purblind doubts render them blind to our burgeoning love.

Forget the brisk trees dangled in the wind on winding paths through haunted forest or remember them because of ghoulish fortress but with our apotropaic lamp we can avert most evil and call the rest fun and gains and shun but fames never profaned, never inalterable a destiny to magical to be some whimpered catcall. Or we could linger beneath lambent street lights disguised as though wilted garb, attrition of circumstance waiting patiently for the matinee and the vintner to escort us beyond the garb of pretense in a city so abundant with it that it deserves castigation. But I digress, a beachside cliff overlooking tepid waters tumultuous in their power but august in their noises, the cadence of love will sing a half-moon bay on full-moon nights and we will frisk each other like grasping at straws of permanent tracks trammeled of the elite and a sidetracked basque bet. Trim those antlers and instead grow metaphorical wings, to us we all sing but few can match your elegance and everyone would be crazy not to see your ennobled age and together thrilling songs to emulate thriller in sales we will collaboratively sing.
Haughty sneers from lifeless lycanthropy straggling furtively along the pastiched sidewalks of grime, livid because they can’t share the lingering limelight, with as many guarded perks of privacy clambering like a hive of snarky sharks. Lets ditch the big town dreams in terms of posh and stature if only for a caressed moment beneath the unadulterated stars and if you find spars **** to the extent they are amiable than I say guess what my name is Lars! Or wait a second, paused in the big city spotlight our stenciled hearts will guide whatever progeny is yours or mine or ours together we will sing the most comforting lullaby, and caves no longer must we abide. Yearn and earn every inch, as I gripe with my delicate saddened pinch but I think the innuendo speaks . Ripen with our trips to Napa, long afternoon sunsets swim in our hearts as we taste the vanguard’s toast on elegant wine.I console with entreaty to disavow the omen of that San Franciscan church October 2008, the doom implied by Einstein, the raillery of a world grinding down the endless decadence of a railed future inalterable in destiny or partialy amenable to widespread coquetry.

Forget those rumbles in your past that made you feel partial to insecurity and learning the ropes you transcended all and live in all eternity. Thimble and brook, tolerant of all those tokes I took your rebellious side flattens the yeast of Exodus raspy in its begrudged clapping. But the Pharaoh of the modern world sheltered me under his prickly thorns, shielded me from the sickly things that life adorns. We have the numbers on our side, the weight of destiny on our shoulders, dedicate yourself to yourself and I will preen the most vibrant wisdom and love will leap like Apollo across all borders not for camel-****** hoarders. We are culminated destiny in the wings of the best daydream

dunedin. friday, three, afternoon.
set from home under a blue sky
with full& prepared pack,
a somewhat empty stomach,
and a necessity to get away from the city.
hiking boots tread asphalt down to the depot,
where, in thirty-seven minutes punctuated
by plastic seats grafted to a wall
and a mildly disjunct group of small or
big-time travellers, the naked bus
pulled in, a hematite centipede
crawling into the lot. it was a bus,
no complaints. all others' bags
stowed, twenty seven bucks outta pocket
and swung into the front-right-window seat,
bid a farewell to the beat-down
pub across the road and onto the one-way
merging into a highway and outta
town the dark bug skittered, on
schedule or something resembling it.
behind the driver, the sun came through
around the beam in the window. warm patterns
laid on skin, the countryside's broad expanse:

cylindrical bales of hay scattered about
paddocks, dark late-autumn florets of flax
on roadsides, plumes of white smoke from
bonfires in townships as small as a thumbnail,
hedgelines of eucalyptus, pine; russet streaks
through bark of single gum trees stood
off-centre in fields. sticky-wooded hillsides
punctured by fire breaks roll almost forever
and back. the rushing sound of passing cars
through the 3/4-golden ratio of the driver's
ajar window; twenty-first century mansions
verging on out-of-place. saplings emerging,
bracketed, through verdant grass patches.
museum abbatoirs. toitoi like hen's plumage
lining drainage ditches. another Elizabeth st-
(how many could be counted out by now?) tidy
front yards and milton liquorland through this
small town. an everpresent tilting sun. fields
of flowered nettle. s-bends through pancake layers
of hills. a delapidated gravel quarry at stony
creek. deer farms, sheep farms, bovine farms, alpaca
farms (favourite); another bonfire seen down a
long gulley; a power substation, all organized
tangles. a two-four 300m before the bridge into

balclutha. 4.40pm.
across the road into the i-site
two friendly ladies circle locations
to make (got a car) or try to make (on foot),
offering a ride in half an hour,
leave it to chance.
across another road, drifter's emporium
(that's the name, no joke) got a knife
to open up cans- bought no cans, brought
no cans, still nice to have one anyway.
down the road, 200ml from unichem, waste
no time, turn ninety degrees, cross a
railway, then outta town in a sec. first
photo: half highway, half clutha river. fine
shot. sit down, watch the water couple mins,
head down the road. red-black ferns radiate
under willows down the riverbank. metal
bumper-bars keep legs on, the road rolls
gentle turns, diverges from the river. stick
to the former, faster that way. no intentions
of hitching. just wanna walk. and walk. and
walk. guy yells out a car window. envy,
likely. who cares. apple tree hangs over
a dry ditch. pick a small one, gone in
a minute. probably ain't sprayed. been
eating ice-cream dinners more often'n
not the last coupla weeks- isn't much
the stomach won't or can't handle anymore,
anyway.

odours of decay from the freezing works.
seagulls sound out nearby.
typical.

down the road, the reek of death fades
out. back to grass. sit in some of the
tall stuff, under a spindly tree. put down
some ink, a handful of asst. nuts. 'bout
thirteen fingers of daylight left. no idea
if the coast is further than that. little
care. down the road the land flattens out,
decent sign. the junction was a fair bit
past reckoned, though. flipped a chunk
of bark (too lazy to get a coin out) to
figure whether the coast was worth it. bark
said no, went out anyway. gotta see the sea,
keeps you sane. past a lush native
acre or two- some lucky ******'s front lawn-
changed mentality, slung out a thumb (first
time). beginner's luck, kid straight outta
seventh form pulls over in a mustard-yellow
*******' kinda beach-van. was headin' out
to the coast, funnily enough. had been up
in raglan (surf central, nz), back down with
the 'rents now, though. out kaka point, only
one of his age, he reckoned, no schoolhouse
there, just olds. was going to surf academy,
pretty apt. little envious.

the plains spread out and out, ocean just
rose up out of a field. there's nothing
more perfect. gentle waves stroke the sands,
houses stare intently out at the mingling of
blues. one cloud hovers so far away it doesn't
even exist. down the other end of kaka point,
back on solid ground, walking into a gorge, laments
about not choosing the coastal route. but owaka
is the new destination, bout 11ks, give or take
(5ks later, sign says another 15.. some give). nothing
coulda beat that sight anyway, stepping outta
a van onto that pristine beach.

entry: gorge route to owaka. seven.
late light painted the tops of hills absolute
gold. thought maybe this way ain't so bad. beside a
converging valley, phone got enough reception
for dad to get through. said in balclutha coulda
got a room with a colleague. too far out now. lost
him in the middle of a sentence about camera film.
surprised to have even got that far. road wound
troughlike through the bottom of the gorge, became
parallel to a cute little stream. climbed down chickenwire
holding the road in place, ****** in it (had to).
clambered back up, continued walking as the occasional
campervan rolled on by. took a photo of the sun perched
on a hilltop, sent it to mel. dunno why. anxieties
over the perfect sunrise picture came frequently,
a goal become turmoil. the gorge flattened out,
and soon in countryside my fears allayed. round
a corner in picturesque nowhere, found my shot.
sat in long grass. stole it. sighed. ate a handful
of nuts. moved on. {about eight}

dark consumed the surrounding gentle-rolling hills,
nowhere near owaka, which was probably the tiny bundle
of lights nestling a little below the foot of a
mountain in the distance (not too far off, in
reality). near the turnoff to surat bay (was heading
there, plans change) a ute honks. taken as friendly.
a right turn instead of a left, farmsteads lit
up in fireplace tones, the sound cows make at
dusk. it got colder. would one jersey be sufficient?
hoepfully. stars began pinpricking the royal blues of the
night sky in its opening hues. eight-fourty-ish slugged
back about 3/4 of the syrup, along with half of a box
of fruit medley (so **** delicious), in light of dull
calf aches becoming increasingly apparent. needed
to walk a helluva lot more. ain't one for lettin'
nothing get in the way of that. lights in the distance
became the entry sign for a camp-site. no interest,
head on. past another farmhouse, stars came out in
packs. three cows upon a slight hilltop. next junction
pulled left a good eighty degrees and was on the
straight to owaka. less than two minutes later,
a dog-ute pulled to a halt and offers up a ride down
most of the stretch. didn't say no.

still stable, as two pig-hunters tell
of their drive back from picking up a couple
pig-dogs somewhere north. they were heading
out bush to shoot, thought they'd seen
another guy they'd picked up a couple weeks
ago, who'd taken 'em out somewhere they
couldn't remember. paranoia grips, but
the lads are fairly innocuous. they say it's
dangerous out here, gotta be ballsy walking
middle of the night, no gun, no dog,
all by yourself. wasn't worried, got nothing
to lose anyway (still, this sets helluva
mood). by a turnoff a k outta owaka, dropped
off. said probably all that'll be open there
is a pub, if that. bid luck and set their way.
above, the whole sky is covered with shining
glitter. down a dip and turn, **** in the
middle of the road. an ominous sign indicating
the outskirts of

owaka. approximately 9.40pm

my head loosens as i approach. the lights
form across a small valley i can't verify
exists or not between dog barks i mistake
for the yells of drunkards and lights
pirouetting from cars behind me. i slow
down i don't want to do this.

owaka is terrifying. plastic.

the street corners thud like cardboard. i
walk past a garden of teapots, a computer
screen inside the house glares through the
window pane bending breathing outward. there
is nobody here, still there is a feeling
like there's people everywhere, flocking
in shadows. a silhouette moving in a
distant cafe doorway. the sound of teeth,
of darkness fallen. thick russian tones
sound from a shelf of a motel. eyes
everywhere, mostly mine. i stop only round
a bend and down near a police station, yet
feeling no more safe, sitting in a gutter to
send mel my plans, to tell myself my plans.
i want to be nowhere again. i am soon nowhere.

out of breath, out the other end of owaka,
the sick streetlights fade into comforting
dark nestled between bunches of indistinct
treelines. the feeling of safety lasts but
twenty minutes, where another dip in the
road leads through a patch of bush, in which
gunshots ring periodically and laughter and
barking rings through. breaking down, it takes
five minutes to resolve and keep going. ain't
got nothing to lose, anyway. boots squeak like
diseased hinges all down the road. hadn't
noticed beforehand, the only thing noticed
now. an impending doom hangs thick like fog,
the thought of being strung up like an
underweight hog. walking faster and
not much quieter, the other side of the
bush couldn't have come sooner. the fear
lasts until the gunshots are distant nothing.
still alive, still out of breath, still
fairly ****** up, there's no comfort like the
sound of nothing but the occasional insect's
chirp. vestiges of still water came around
a corner and just kept coming as the golden
moon sung serenity all over. finally, a peace
came to rest over the landscape. sitting by
the road with a clear view of the moon's light
sheathed in the waters, the stars above wreath
a cirrus eye to watch over the marshland
plants leading into the placid waters of

catlins lake, west. ten fifty-one.
crossing a one-way bridge over a river winding
its way into the lake, another turning point
decision arose: continue down the highway
along the river, or head straight out and
toward the coast again. having resolved to
make it to a waterfall by dawn, and the latter
offering a possibility of this, the decision
made itself. turning back around the other side
of the lake, the road wound a couple times
up a gentle ***** out and up from the valley
at the tail of the lake, and into a slightly
more elevated valley. the country roads ran
easily and smooth, paved roughly but solid.
not a car came by for kilometers at a time.
lay on the road past a turnoff for quarter
of an hour letting serenity wash over, the
hills miniscule in comparison to home, the
sky motionless, massive thin halo about the
moon. walking on, night-birds called from
time to time (no moreporks, though. not until
dawn), figuring out how to whistle them back.
a turnoff to purakaunui bay strongly
considered and ultimately ignored; retrospectively
a great call, considering the size of the detour.
hedgerows of macrocarpa, limbs clearly cut
haphazard where once they'd hung over the
road. occasional 4wd passing, always a 4wd,
be it flash new or trusty old. you'd need
one out here. have no fun, otherwise.
monolithic pine-ish hedge bushes, squatting
giants. once, a glimmering in the sky, a
plane from queenstown (assumedly) almost
way too far to make out. the colossus of
the one human-shaped shadow cast down
from the moon to my boots. how small
a thing in this place. swamped out by
the beauty of this neverending valley.
breathless.

the road turned, not quite a hairpin,
but not entirely bluntly, a welcome
break from the straight or gentle
sway, and five minutes turned to dirt.
had to lay down again- legs screaming
by this point for rest. still, they
had nothing against pressing on. dad
taught me to just keep going. that's
the thing about walking. stop for a
little bit and you're good to go
again. pushing for the fall was probably
overkill, but no worry now. dirt road
felt so right after a good 20+ks of
asphalt, only infrequently punctuated
by roadside moss or thin grass. it
was as if beginning again (well,
kinda, if only with as much energy).
having downed only a litre of water
(leaving only half a litre more), a
litre of fruit juice and about 100
grams of assorted nuts since more
than twelve hours ago by this point,
it should have been a shock to
still be going by this point. don't
really need that much anyway, though.
gone on less for longer. hydration,
anyway, was the least of all worries,
the air being thick with water, ground
fog having been laid down hours ago.

up the dirt track, more cows. they make strange
sounds at night. didn't know anything yet,
though. that's still to come. a ute swang past
going the other way, indiscriminate hollers
from the passenger-side window. waved back
cheerily. so far from anything to be anything
but upbeat now. not even the heavy shroud of
tiredness could touch that, yet. the track wound
on forever. was stopping every half-kilometer
to stand and stretch, warding off the oncoming
aches. the onset was unwieldy, though. didn't
have long. past a B&B;, wondered whether anyone
actually ever stayed there (surely would, who'd
not revisit this place over and over once they'd
discovered it?)- certainly would've, having the
cash (apparently parts of "lion, witch and the
wardrobe" were filmed here. huh). further on, the
road turned back to seal, unfortunately, but
with small promise- surely, at least fairly
close by this point. turning a corner, a small
and infinitely beautiful indent against the bush,
a small paddock bunched up against it, stream
wound against the bases of trees, all lit by
the clear tones of a now unswathed moon, sat
aside the road. it was distilled perfection.
it was too much, just had to keep goin' or
risk shattering that image. next turn was
a set of DOC toilets, an excellent sign. must be
basically sitting on the path entry now. searched
all 'round the back for it, up the road, nothing.
not entirely despondent but bewildered, moved
forward and found a signpost. the falls were now
behind? turned around and searched even more
thoroughly, quiet hope turning to desperation
by the silent light of the moon. finally,
straight across the road from the toilets,
was the green and gold sign, cloaked in
darkness under clustering trees, professing
a ten-minute bushwalk to the

purakaunui falls. saturday. 1.32 am.**
venturing into the bush by the dull light
of a screen of a dying phone, the breeze
made small movements through the canopy. it
couldn't have been any more tranquil. edging
way through the winding cliffish track through
dense brush, the sound of a trickling stream
engorged into a lush symphony of water. crossing
a single-sided bridge across an unseeable chasm,
twinkling from the ferns behind became apparent.
turning off the dull light, the tiny neon bulbs of
glow-worms littered the dirt wall risen up about
half a metre, where the track had been cut out.
my heart soared. all heights of beauty come
together. continuing down the path, glow-worms
litter the surroundings and the rushing of
water comes to a roar. at a look-out platform
above the falls, nothing can be seen save a
slight glisten. down perilous steps (wouldn't
be too bad if you could actually see 'em) the
final viewing platform lay at level with the
bottom of the falls. they stood like a statue
in the dark, winding trails of thin white wash
through the shadows hung under trees. left
speechless from something hardly made out, turned
around and back up the stairs to where the
glowing dots seemed their most concentrated.
into the ferns above, clambered through and
around moss-painted tree trunks and came to rest
a couple hundred metres from the trail, under
a fern, under a rata. packed everything but
a blanket from nan into the bag, laid it out
on curled leaf litter and folded up into it,
feet too sore to remove 'em from boots, curling
knees up into the blanket and tucking a hand
between 'em to keep it warm. only face and
ankles exposed, watched the moon's light trickle
through canopy layers for a few hours, readjusting
tendons in legs as they came to ache. sleep (or
something resembling it) set in, somewhere
around four.

some time slightly before six, the realisation
that my legs had extended and become so cold that
they'd started cramping all the way through hit,
coupled with the sounds coming through the bush.

Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, ‘Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.’

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
‘Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.’
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.’
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.’

The lamp said,
‘Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.’

The last twist of the knife.

There are things I think about doing with you,
like folding laundry with the windows open
and hearing the crickets chirp outside.
Like listening to the turning ceiling fan slowly
make its way around itself,
while we dance and make our way
around each other in the center of the room.
And you stumble slightly on the edge of the rug
that always rolled up a little bit,
but I am there to catch you.
I know you tried every day to fix that corner,
but you need not worry.
I will always be there to catch you.
I know you try every day to not crumble
and shatter into thousands of little pieces.
I know you’re scared,
but you need not worry.
I will always be there to catch you.

No matter what I say,
  All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
  And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
  At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
  Nothing in this place.

Anxiety is not a feeling
As some of you may believe
You wouldn't be alone
Because plenty of people place it in the same category as
Sad, angry, elated
But one of these things is not like the others.

You see, anxiety is everything and nothing
All at the same time.
Anxiety is when no matter how spacious the room is
It seems to be getting smaller
Until you can see every intricate detail on every wall
Each corner touches your skin
And flattens your chest
As it rises and falls
Your breath is getting short until it stops
And then you become as functional as a corpse
After all, isn't that what you are?

Anxiety is
When your love stands over top of you
Watching your diaphragm as it rapidly pulsates
Wishing he could hold your hands as they sweat profusely
Wanting to breathe life into your convulsing body
But instead, he cannot even grasp the concept
Of why you are not alright.

Anxiety is
Accepting that your reality is not truly real at all
And deciding to realize that people wish they could fix you
But understanding that they don't know what to do
And you don't either.

Anxiety is
Learning from all the
You're blowing things out of proportion's
And
You put to much pressure on yourself's
When you begin to have these panic attacks
In which you feel like death in imminent
Over trivial things.

Anxiety is
Being with people who love you
And still getting bursts of loneliness
That ignite and explode inside your pores and underneath your skin
The blood flowing silently through your veins reminds you
That you are all alone.

Anxiety is
Relating each and every thing you do
To how you are not adequate
And how you must take charge of everything.
It influences the things that tell you
"Make yourself throw up"
And
"Skip that meal today."
Most times, you shoe it away with every particle of strength that you have
Other times, you are not so lucky.

Anxiety is hard to personify
But it is.
And as I muster up the courage in my soul
And the hope in my being
I realize that those things need not be stored
Because I use them every day as I fight this battle.
We are all waging wars
Mine just happens to be against
This thing that is so intricately woven into the chemistry of who I am.
It is a part of me
But it is not all of me
And my voice is louder than this sickness.

the green and waxy confusion is your cape and covering
topaz wings strum and flutter,
branches snap
beast and bug
geranium and dogwood
woodear spore and wolfsbane
flower and firm hedge
all wear goosebumps:
the whole army of generation, the waft and release
ready to conceive, to love and make root
to spill and ****
daylight, moonlight
well-fed and hungry
west and further west

a brush against your thigh flattens you
climbs your spine like a curse
robes you in purpose
to be and be alone

there you are: croucher, scuttler,
position known only to yourself
subclade of womankind
treasure in your soul
(in purses and pouches;
taking in, taking in)

it is private here and musty
you own your hands, your knees,
the dirt under them both,
the roots beneath that,
everything on the wind and below the blue sky
everything dark, and everything light:
kingdom of your own discovery
shroud and mountain and cache of mystery.

A door far away slides open
an echo of busy house, busy bones on the air.
Something in the oven.
Something in the heart.

What is the voice calling?
Who wants you home, child?
And if home is a warm meal, a bed,
a bath, a glass of milk,
a known touch,
then do you own your skin?

Aren't you small and lonely?
You are not.

There’s plenty of flesh on her finger,
sagging, loose, folded ,
crumpled at the knuckle.

The nail is peach, white at the tip
manicured, manufactured; plastic.

She reaches out towards a musty key.
The greyish, flesh-coloured cube
awaits her touch.

She withdraws from her ******,
her finger folds away with the rest.

Reassured, she begins again.
Her fat stub hovering
over the scrabble of letters

With a satisfied click
the key flattens into the board.

The rattle is shaken and life becomes unfixed
Torrential rains cascades downwards on ancient bricks
These stunning moments have been rediscovered
In wonder all is flustered in awe as the state of silence honks
Love creeps out of tune in time, the unsureness of cold feet
The voice fades, the toned whispers continually erased
Stormed and soaked, stilled and stalked by a heart that stole my dream
Drenched in uncertainty, non-favouring multitudes won't let me be
These flutters flattens and deflated, I stroll and I will not run
The floating fun fares vanishes, the morning bird furnishes
The time capsule evaporated, unstripped and frozen

Ohh, how I wished to plant and harvest inspiration
Wake up with a renewed breath of air, the flowing river
Of the days when the gloom masked, I hated what life had become
How could humanity be so self centred and selfish?
I looked for silence and the banging never ceased
The masses rushed, never to let me be, they snatched my freedom
I inhaled the hope of the freeness and longed for the racing momentums

How so?
That over time the weather collapsed to coldness, the darkness marbled
A nag of the songbirds, as I escaped in the ****** ozone layer
A disconnect of the mind, body and soul; when I saw my spirit sail
A snail sailing on its own course and journey slowly but steady
Reflections and visions of the timeline of growth and fertility
A heart of one, the soul of all, the mind of many, a tongue in sums
The chandelier hanged on a ceiling, high, holding the flickering bulbs
A condense of energy, the modelled nature of a prognostic intervention
A laughter and synergy rests in the symphony of the unsung melodies

507

She sights a Bird—she chuckles—
She flattens—then she crawls—
She runs without the look of feet—
Her eyes increase to *****—

Her Jaws stir—twitching—hungry—
Her Teeth can hardly stand—
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first—
Ah, *****, of the Sand,

The Hopes so juicy ripening—
You almost bather your Tongue—
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes—
And fled with every one—

Three children sit behind a dumpster
outside of the Pier Pizza Parlor
unaware that they are children
Seven years later walking past Bridge Square
a girl remembers

**** we're out of cigarettes
and my mom's fucken car is locked. man.
and joints rolled with single ply toilet paper
burning through precious *** in the seaside woods where Indians
used to die

She, curling hands,
flattens a photograph of three kids in swimsuits and baseball caps
crouched under the rainy eaves of a waterslide
lighting a one hitter and gazing at their tiny dying world
now like a centerfold
it's covered in lubricant sweat and spittle
after too much time under the wrong beds

She sits on this small fountain
wistfully blinking and ******* down the cigarettes she wishes she could lock back up
kneading her dead legs and wondering
if it's better to have a past smudged by erasers
or mottled with bruises

The cacophony of metal cutting metal screeches,
burying the sound of 2,000 automobile engines, one train,
and 45 yapping onlookers.

I am self-actualizing.

The ******* Oriental who cut me off
learns the meaning of justice in a hair-split second.

I howl as I force his car further to the side of the road.
He's yelping, feeling fright claw his once-proud brain.

I look up, trying to keep my car on the road.
We tear past shopfront after shopfront,
patrons wailing, pointing, finally finding
something mad enough to put down their forks.

I see skeletal trees,
overshadowed by a red wrecking ball,
an out-of-business record shop,
the metal still crying the most demonic
siren's song.

Further I push him,
he's on pavement,
my little Oriental enemy.
I look at him again.
His knuckles are milk white,
his brow covered with perspiration,
his mouth bleeding from his own bite.

Then he hits.

A stoplight post of solid steel,
with three or so feet of concrete surrounding.
I learn he isn't wearing a seat belt.
Glass grinds his delicate skin, he catapults through the air,
then flattens against a newspaper dispenser.

Then I hit.

A **** Suburban in front of me,
who had stopped to watch the carnage,
now found itself partaking.

I have my seatbelt on,
the bags deploy,
thumping my head and
chest like a crippled bolt of lightning.

The Suburban spins into oncoming traffic,
getting further rearranged by
a pile-up of moaning metal.

My truck comes to a stop.
Smoke cascades languidly,
as humans shout in unison,
"I hope you have good insurance!"

I walk back fifteen yards to the
newspaper dispenser.

The Oriental man twitches,
blood pooling about his head
and left arm.

I stoop down closer to him,
look at his silent Rorschach ****** features,
gaze over my shoulder.
The Suburban lies in smoldering ribbons,
driver probably trying to get into heaven.

Shouts continue, building upon one another,
a crowd gathers around me,
whispers all similar to "what the hell happened?"
flame up and burn through the collective.

"Did you know him?" a small black boy,
with teeth of snow asks.

"Not real well, but don't worry kid, he wasn't a good man."

I rummage through the crowd until I break through,
I hear sirens of some sort in the distance,
unclear of cop or ambulance,
I survey the damage to my truck-
a light busted out,
bent bumper,
and what looks like a few holes drilled into the grill.
I open the door,
clumsily ruffle the airbag,
put my key in the ignition,
and to my delight
when I turn the beast,
it purrs submissively.

I grin, let my fingertips
briefly dance on the steering wheel,
and put the truck in reverse.

The Open Studio

Usually the journey by car flattens expectation, and there’s that all-preoccupying conversation, so one only takes in the view where there’s a halt at a traffic light or at the occasional junction. A pattern on a wall, a damaged sign, a curtained window. Waiting, one looks and sometimes remembers, and what one sees later reappears in dreams or moments of disordered contemplation. A train journey is another matter: you sit and look, and when it is a trip rarely made, you put the book away and gaze beyond the ***** windows to a living landscape that scrolls past the frame of view. When you arrive there’s inevitably a walk: today through a town’s industrial hinterland, its pastness where former mill buildings have tactfully changed their use to become creative places, peopled with aspiration and strange activity. Walking reveals the despair of forlorn roadside business falling back into alleys ending in neglected and empty buildings, so much *******, silences of waste and decay.

But here’s the space, there’s a sign on a board outside, OPEN STUDIO TODAY. Entering inside it is quiet and cold, the door remaining open to let in the December air and the hoped-for visitors. But it’s bright and light: a welcoming presence of work and people and coffee and cake. And here’s the studio, a narrow space between make-shift walls where the artist works, where the work awaits, laid out on the surfaces of desks and tables, on shelves and walls, specimens of making; ‘stuff’, the soon-to-be, the collected, the in-progress-perhaps, the experimental.

Good, a heater blows noisily onto cold fingers. In the turbulent air pieces tremble slightly from their hangings on the walls. They are placed at a good height, a ‘good to be close to examine the detail’ height, the constructed, the made, the woven, the stitched, the printed, all assembled by the actions of those quiet, intent, those steady hands. There, a poem on a wall next to the window. Here, photographs of places unlabelled, unrecognised, but undoubtedly significant as a guide to the memory. Look, a dead badger lying in a road.

Next to the studio, a gallery space. Two walls covered with framed prints, well lit, a body of work captured behind glass, in limbo, waiting patiently for the attentive eye to sort the detail, that touch of the object on paper, that mark found and brought out of time and place. Perhaps these ‘things’, some known, some mysteriously foreign adrift from their natural context, have been collected by that bent form on a windswept beach, by the hand reaching out for the  gift in the gutter, struck by the foot on the track, unhidden in the grass by the riverside, what we might pass as without significance and beyond attention. This artist gives even the un-namable a new life, a collected-together form.

Moving closer let the eye enter the artist’s world of form and texture - and colour? There is a patina certainly, colour’s distant echo, what is seen on the edges, a left-behindness, more than any subtlety of language knows how to express, beyond comfortable descriptions, not excitable, where the spirit is damped down and is restful to the mind, a constancy of background, like a capturing of a cloud but bulging full of hints and suggestions, where texture is everywhere, nature’s rich patterns colliding with things once invented and made, used once, once used left and changed, thrown away, to be brought before the selecting eye and the possibility of form with meaning its patient partner.



J.M.W.Turner writes  on poetry and painting

Poetry having a more extensive power
Than our poor art, exerts its influence
Over all our passions; anxiety for our future
Reckoned the most persistent disposition.

Poetry raises our curiosity,
Engages the mind by degrees
To take an interest in the event,
And keeping that event suspended,
Overturns all we might expect.

The painter’s art is more confined,
Has nothing to equate with the poet’s power.
What is done by painting must be done at once,
And at one blow our curiosity receives
All the satisfaction it can know.

The painter can be novel, various and contrast,
Such is our pleasure and delight when put in motion.
Art, therefore, administers only to those wants,
And only to desires that exercise the mind.



Twilight

A day aside and diaried into busy lives
So to a morning walk to Turner’s View
Above the River Wharfe and Farnley Hall
Where it is said the inspiration came
For his famous oil of Hannibal,
with elephants and storm-glad Alps.

On to lunch where six around a table
Souped with salad before we homed
Mid afternoon the day in decline
We were done with words so watched
The edge-timed light flow between our hands.

Inevitably we climbed the stairs to lie
In twilight’s path beneath the skylight’s
Square a sliver-moon we couldn’t see
Gracing the remaining daylight hour
Marbled with shadows our collected
Curves and planes lay as sculptures
In the approaching dimity and dark
Each experimental stroke of touch
Holding us dumb to speech and thought
As night’s soft blanket covered us entire


Northcliffe Woods

Oh nest in the sky, empty of leaves,
Those tangled branches
Reaching out from twisted trunks
Into the sullen clouds above, when

Suddenly a crow -
‘Corvidae’, she said -
And simultaneously pulled
a hank of ivy from a nearby tree.

Hedera Helix I thought
But did not say, instead
I whispered to myself
Those ancient names I knew.

Bindwood, Lovestone
(For the way it clings
To bricks but ravages walls),
A vine with a mind of its own. But

She, in a different frame that day,
Apart, adrift and far away
From our usual walk and talk,
Fixed her gaze on the woodland floor,

Whilst skyward I sought again that
Corvid high in the branches web
Black beyond black beyond black
Against the pale white canopy above.


Franco*

Blow She Still
Ed insieme bussarono
Sweet Soft Frain
Cloche Lem Small
Spiri About Sezioni
Portrait Eco Agar
Le ruisseau sur l’escalier
Etwas ruhiger im Ausdruck
Jeux pour deux
For Grilly Fili Argor
Atem L’ultima sera
Omar Flag Ave
The Heart’s Eye*

play joy touch
code panel macro
refraction process solo
quick-change constrained
hiatus sonority colour
energy post-serial scintillating
aleatoric reuse transformation

A lonely child who imagined music
on sunday walks, he would talk about
how one lives with music as someone
would talk about how one might live
with illness or a handicap. He said,
‘You cannot write your life story in
music because words express the self
best whereas music expresses something
quite beyond words’.

Gray matter unfolds
To expose a world hence unseen.
What you thought was soft muscle
Is actually a community of golden pathways,
Carved from the hollow horns
Of unicorns, slayers of virgins.

Like a deconstructed accordion,
It flattens
And reveals a soul, a heart
Floating through space on the back of his fingers.

The deepest annals of the universe
Are uncovered for your eyes only
And for those few blessed moments
There is only greatness.

the sled flattens cans on its way down the rock-face
oh, bottomless pit, how have thou forsaken the moth without the lantern!
carry me and I will carry me farther,
shoot a man and he will die for a day
teach a man to shoot and he will die for a lifetime.

Inalienable in the sense of extra-terrestrially impossible
Cold in the float-plane at 8000 feet or as high as an average cascade
'Average' being an ******* who believes himself average
**** that *******.

slumber as fast as you can to reach first place.
go, go, go!

the race has started!

antisocial sociopath
exquisitely exhumed exhaust
let us be clear. this is the end.
and the beginning.
fluttery flattery flattens all
so goes and does all foes.

I am so blessed you know
all my blessed life it's been so
I'm OK, my family is OK
God's chosen to bless me and mine
according to the Law of I Choose Who

I'm so blessed easy and cool:
like the other day, you know,
my neighbour was mocking me
(in spite of my perfect features)
and he was laughing as he crossed the streets
and a car knocked him down at Walk Street -
ha, God flattens mine enemies!

It is a life full of blessings you know -
there are people out there dying of hunger
and bloated tummies and explosions
and Ebola and such
but my family and I God has continued to protect
I am so blessed, I know -
it is a just God
(I am convinced)
who watches over me
Open your hearts
and blessings will pour
on you and your tribes too
There's the law of probability
and the sweep of randomness
- but hey, it's pleasing to know
me and mine are magnificently blessed

*How smooth and easy it is
I can smile at the world in peace and self-satisfaction

To look carefully.
It begins with a reminder to myself to look oh so carefully
Because this isn't just any time of day,
But the end of day time when the light fades away.
To think, that this happens before every eve and after every noon
Night pulls at the Sun so gently.
From behind the mountains
The anchor of time begins its distortion
Upon the Sun, its stress seems to bless the sky
In those blending hues
And spins clouds into colorful sweetness
As it demands an encore for a set too soon.

The mountains become flat nibbles into space,
Eating at the canvas
Where sky's light knows nothing of us.
It too, flattens buildings at the foothills;
A pasting of pastel flavor, drawn
By the distant gray air of sand and sea.
The glorified glass edifices at my shore watching,
Bleeding, in mocking colors of a time that burns into another
A time that ends in blazing defiant oranges assaulting the falling sky
In quarrelsome pinks and purples

I remember the tender
I must see this so softly

At the sinking light
As the mountains swallow burning sky
One ring at a time,
Lighter than velvet.
Heavier than vivid.

Humility rose, with this setting,
To stand against so many gradients
And recall the faux pas of permanence.
Not until it was gone
With its whims toward time.
Could I see, tenderly.
The width and warmth
Of their embellished embrace
Between day, and night-
Pouring that fragility-
From the last light.

Through desert plains and stormy seas
we travelled hand in hand.
We battled countless enemies
throughout this hidden land.
 
To claim the throne and throw the man
who claims himself as king.
To banish him and curse and ****
his soul that will not sing.
 
The soldiers come the heroes fall.
The swarms keep coming in.
Their numbers grow and multiply,
our forces shrinking thin.
 
There is no way to turn around,
go back to where we came.
We must continue taking ground
and not forget our names.
 
The battles lasted days at times,
the fighting will not cease.
The men are falling in their lines,
but does that give them peace?

Our numbers small and shrinking still,
regroup with less and less
The army charges flattens hills
and leaves behind such mess.

We dig the holes and place the dead
inside the holes to rest.
Their faces fill us all with dread.
We try to fight our best.

The castle shadow covers us.
Our heart can feel the doom.
Throughout the night the battlefield
is lit up by the moon.

The clouds they build and roll across
the sky towards the west.
Around my neck is hung a cross
for Him I do my best.

The archers from the other side,
they line up all around.
We hear the swish of arrows fly,
embed into the ground.

I look around. Of us alive,
there are so very few.
With numbers down to only five
how then can we push through?

At this point another falls,
an arrow through his neck.
His shield cannot stop arrows all
while broken from the trek.

They charge at us we only just
deflect their blows of hate.
We have to win! We simply must
get up and through the gate.

Our numbers then go down to three
a sword went through his heart,
he falls and ceases then to breathe
his armour lined with darts.

We fight them for what seems like hours
but only seconds pass.
Our blood is covering the flowers
that bloom there in the grass.

Weariness has settled in
to our so tired bones.
Our pride and honour caving in,
we’re so far from our homes.

We lose the third, his legs were tak-
en out from under him.
I saw the hammer swing and break
his legs right on the shins.

Now left with two, we know we’ve lost
a solemn nod is shared.
So back to back, we face the host
and all their teeth are bared.

There is no chance of standing down,
we’re fighting til we die.
We drop so many to the ground
I hear my teammate cry.

I see the arrow bursting forth
out of his bleeding arm.
I turn my head back to the north
and cry out in alarm.

My throat is sore from calling out
above all of the noise.
The army’s turned us from strong men
into young frightened boys.

If you don't feel happiness
Don't show the world your pain.
It might be distressing
uncomfortable and grey.
And the comfort that you seek
Is the last thing that you'll get.
No one has your number.

If you don't have serenity
Or a plastic edgy smile
Conversation flattens
You'll be alone awhile.
And if you try to wear a mask
You'll soon be hollow all inside
You can't hide forever.

Won't you?

Will you?
Come be with me for awhile
Come be real with me awhile.
Awhile.

Pulsating pressure, provoking a pandemonium of preconceived panic.

A mind of mush, intertwined within the stroke of tension and resilience.

An urge to fast forward, to leap over the walk way that flattens my belonging.

Dishearted. Dismayed. Tired. Tired of imperfections. Impressions imploding on the intangible beings of the Id.

no echo here just quiet and the bright
lamp of midday that flattens all below
with gentle touch that equals massive blow
and makes us all long for the cool of night
there's not a bird  today seeking the height
the strongest beast is hiding from the glow
this day at least we wish to see the snow
soften the edges of this harshest sight
mind cannot waken to the meanest task
nor is there thought of music for the charge
when distance adds so much to every fear
it magnifies the words that each must ask
making the burdens that were small so large
but yet each basket when we look holds air

Fingers on the back of my neck
Curl into my hair,
And a sigh whispers in my ear.
Like a cat drinking I have unraveled my muscles,
Condensed them loosely around my bones,
And he has condensed
Himself loosely around me.
The mute and immovable weight
Of his eyes laying themselves on mine
Flattens my lungs,
And ever eager to fix he fastens over me
And breathes .

Who is responsible
for the sparks in your eyes
tonight, on the balcony,
leaning over the edge
to touch the blazing lights
of the troubled city below?

You're not wearing your cloak this time.
"You noticed?"
I did.

And when we read together
in bed on rainy mornings,
your accent is flawless,
while mine stutters and stumbles,
flattens the romance.

It's funny: I've lived in Paris;
you've never been, not once.

Yesterday, I knew you
inside and out, like the
backs of my blistered hands.

Today, we are strangers,
somehow.

The world's injustice flattens you down,
Your trapped, stuck,
There is no way around.

They all say “it'll be okay!”
But what do they really mean?
They say in time that  “you'll be fine!”
But thats not what it seems . . .

You'll hide it away,
Forgotten you say,
Till someone touches on the scar.

And free at last,
The tears will stream fast,
And you force them back down your throat,

I'm sorry my friend, but,
Not all pain mends.

On the street
by a crumbling grey tenement
of old white sneakers and coffee pots,
blue clotheslines and floral wallpaper
a young mother sits on her porch
folding her son's laundry
her eyes darting from button to fly
wondering what she could make him for supper

I stop
gather damp newspapers
and discarded plastic bottles that lined the curb
and stare long at the mother
whose hand gently flattens the creases that run
down the faded denim legs
of her beloved, ******* child

I light
a small fire in the rain.

When Daniel swam out towards the island,
the children and I saw it happen,
the family safe on shore, oblivious
to the riptides that pull
shells, weeds, flounder, and men down.

We could not believe the ocean claimed him.
He had romanced her,
witholding for once
his scorn for things too vast.

Today, I leave this coastline,
its cliff-faces and inlets.
I walk on the beach,
and then I walk into the water
up to my ankles, knees, waist,
up to my neck before I let the sea take me.

I swim,
I grow fins,
lose my arms and legs,
gills supplant my lungs,
and my face flattens 'til I'm fisheyed.

I am a citizen of the sea,
come to sue for my loss.
I swim like a mad maiden,
I swim,
then I dive below, dear Daniel.

Depression is an overused word
It might make an easy rhyme
For poets who labor under the impression
That they can climb to the heights of expression
By showing no discretion with each and every
Narcissistic emotional self-obsession confession.

But of all the poetic depression transgressions
From the front of the procession
To the straggling indiscretion
The worst and least touched on
Is that it's boring...

Depression and talk of it
Leads to the inevitable compression
Of each and every tidbit
Or texture that prevents a poem from becoming a lecture

It flattens the curve
It scans the sculpture
A man of depth dwindles to a nerve

But depression doesn't let them see how it narrows their view
The circle it drew around appropriate questions
Ignore the censor and suppression
Be vigilant of the slightest dispossession
Starting to understand this oppression?

Don't let it convince you that you can see more clearly
From the bottom of a pit
You have no idea what you're missing

The sun rose pink over Lancaster;
Its frozen rains came quick in tow—
Here, we sense the passive and the active:
To take the drag or pull:
He is dragged by the way of the automatic hand-to-mouth;
The Other, is my command—
But that, even, impelled snowfully toward
A closed fist, a locked grasp, an unwilling departure.

I suggest a dislocation somewhere in parallax:
Take paper dimensions and fold them 104 times
And everything flattens out—
The ocular inversion becomes like-real; I’ll swim in that!
Puddles are dragged by the wind, whilst the pull thinks in spite
Of I, its strange corpus of author, and opus
Drags to the creature of appetite deign to call to order.

But a power powerless to its name given it:
Destined desiring of sunnier metaphors—
The alcoves of the thread, brought to just us
Caesuras of what satisfies, in food, in just us
The depth of image holds true: one cannot live on bread alone.
Thus, I muse and mull back to locks of hair and bellybuttons
Waiting, in time—the deepening of time’s cloth
Where my hand caresses her thigh—
One can feel the gravity pressing on the heart,
All the love that self-reflects, combs out the wrinkles,
And has faith in the good inertia.

By this secular host consubstantiate
And Other (surely a pleasing affair) is but moments away.
And she and I look so pretty together,
Our is of whom and what and the third conditional.

That which presses upon itself, the one dimension,
Cannot disentangle from name or alliance, nor faith,
Greedily picking at the oily ruptures, effulging in transparence,
Contradictions care not for astrology,
And whether you are poetry
Is not important here.

A ***** tightened too tight
Right here. In my stomach.

Life is a simple thing, really:
You just let people tell you exactly what you need to feel,
Followed by:
Exactly what you need to do
Followed by:
Exactly how you need to live.
Then, fortunately, you'll be happy, and thus you will have nothing else in the world to worry about.
It's certainly a utopian age we live in. It's funny how every single person has every single answer to every single question.

A Disclaimer:
I dislike emotion. It's rather like a very uncomfortable shape that just sort of sits there - or sometimes it rages, but mostly just sits there - moving about as if it breathes, and its heart beats on its own. The best thing to do is:
Beat it down with a large wooden stick. And then follow the rules.

Let us review the matter, shall we?
A singular person seems to entirely shift the constellations that connect the stars in my head.
Until it all sort of flattens into a wide, sharp-but-not-sharp mass of screaming desire and frantic pursuit, and it settles nicely into the shape of my smile.

A side note:
Eyes are easy to look into,
until you realize that perhaps you shouldn't be looking into them
until you realize that it might be your one chance to look into them,
until you realize that it's too late, and those eyes are
somewhere else.
Bliss.

Back to business:
The feel of someone is like fire - can't quite grasp it until you are, and then it leaves a mark. An aching mark, perhaps, one that leaves you up at night, but a mark nonetheless.
And then the planets suddenly all revolve around that sun, that flaming son, that maddeningly heated and roaring sun that warms you and burns you and fills your life with light and blinds you to everything that was or should be or even wants to be and it just is:

Love. A terrifying, irrational, confusing, and all-around undesirable reality. Let's scrape it off into words, the little voices said, and see if it makes anything better. In a small way, perhaps it does. Or maybe that's just me again.

A note to the Reader:
Nothing to see here, my friend. Just a bit of liquid nonsense splattered onto a blank page. With all the lies out there, it's fascinatingly easy to be deceived.

A Final Note:
Occasionally there is a moment
in which the reality becomes so real that it's There
and an unfortunate soul can feel it
and they also feel that Person breathing, shifting, living, from so far away and suddenly
for just a second
in a flash of light
that unfortunate soul
can sense the squirming mass of flesh that is Humanity
under an abandoned darkening sky.

A hand tightened too tight
Right here. Over my heart.

She came into our lives like a tornado.
She flattens and destroys.
Screaming down the love we give.
Filling the house with noise.

Little cherub face masked with angry rage.
What can I do...is this just a phase?

She calls me mommy and I'm not sure what to say.
Is being her mommy supposed to feel this way?

The days drag on and I can't deny.
My heart isn't in this and I'm not sure why.

I read her a book. I brushed her hair. I held her while she cried, but my mind wasn't there.

I held her hand. I cleaned her face. I showed her a cloud. I taught her about space.

I know what it is...I can finally see...

I'm afraid to love her because...

she doesn't belong to me.

The problem with casual ***
is not a problem at all.

The problem with casual ***,
is that I still inhale
when you kiss my neck
and exhale
into a deep lull.

You lift up my dress
and your mouth curves a smile
that flattens into my stomach,
you laying on top of me,
breathing for just a while.

Our eyes don’t meet,
they gravitate,
slide down our bodies
melting beneath a small graze
of hands,
or touching feet.

I didn’t think I liked you,
but why does your hand
touching my back
always have to feel
warmer
than the blanket
that covers me?

But should I question my sanity,
when someone I decide to sleep with
can barely sleep
when they sleep next to me.

He stumbles,
She trips,
They fall,
In love?
Surely not,

For love is just a facade,
It’s not real,
It’s not the truth,

Mrs. Waters, she liked the sound of that,
He’s dead.
He left her, a widow of a marriage unhappened.

It’s been a year and a half,
She thought falling in love was like falling asleep,
Slowly and then all at once,
She was tricked into a coma,
Waking up to find her love,
Lifeless,
His body cold.

So, so, cold.

Was it her thoughts, stars, the ones she could never quite fathom into constellations, that killed him?

Was it the heat of their love, the heat of the sun rising, the heat of the stars burning out as the line symbolizing his life, flattens.

The haze of a distant fire
flattens the light on the knolls
beyond the sageflats. Their half-tone
silhouettes jagged by tall pines.
The rumble of the engine as I stand beside the truck
with the door open, surveying the
horizon. Locusts crackling.
A patchwork of shadows washes
over the flats. Steel-gray clouds above.
The wind kicks up sparse columns of
dust. A lonely road
and a shot-up gate.
A glimmer in the dirt. Brass.
Nine millimiter. Discharged and forgotten.
The lock on the gate has been grazed by bullets.
Maybe this one.
The shadows wash over outcroppings
of lava rock amid the tall sage.
Nooks and crannies. Places to hide.

A gust of wind and I am standing in the shade
and my eyes relax as a prairie falcon
glides over the road to survey the
far side for something to eat,
close enough I can almost
hear the beating of his
wings and suddenly
zigs up and then
charges toward
the ground
and then
he has
gone.