angry men who do not know I do not have a dollar or a cig to spare. Ugly irrefutable contagion-handed howlers. Angry mischievous heathens that pantomime on 6:00a.m. sidewalk, Wicker Park gallow stop-sign, choreographed gutter-punk drunk walk. And of all he wants and could ever want splits down his gooey membrane brain in the outline of a noun shaped fragment of a clause, "Couldja spare 80¢ for the train," but of course I don't spare on the ellipsis or the period. Semi-colons I won't! My rubber-bottomed leather boots lash out, heavy scraping sounds trail this mirrored shadow half an angle behind me.

*****!! Blonde framed sunglasses from American Apparel, a gift from my sister in a folded Ray-Ban case is scattered on last nights bedroom floor, my girlfriend has certainly not noticed, the gloom-coated morning sun spray has not noticed; but I have unzipped a fissure in the ocular lens. My heart skips a beat. Her bedroom might as well have swallowed them whole. Now the house can halt and have the shade, swaying in Spring air in 10:22a.m. shadows. The aviator himself Howard Hughes would strike me with his 488 aircraft. Edwin Starr in his invincible sinister calypso of War would turn me round. I was sturdy as a rock until I began to forget my forgottens. These unknown unknowns I knew I needed. I'm over a quarter-century on to noon going nowhere- and quite blindly.

But then, still she could stand upright and find me. Her neck crooked, looking onward through the East, the gristly roots of rhubarb buried in her searching fingernails. She's threaded worse, and of course if I could just tell her- this is the kind of nursing which requires acute temperament and flexibility. I am thus on a journey to strike nonsense and fear from the idiotic vocabulary that put this nonsense in my head. Split through me like a butter knife into my apotropaic. Perhaps tar water could cure my ails. If not, certainly a sliver of vanilla would set me straight. Or if could just rain rain rain all day, then I'd make do without, but she is at school. My pistons are racked and nervous, and I'm not going anywhere but my rucksack stoop. I am camped in midwestern Spring soup. Fog, rain, and shade. The nightmare of day.

traipsing w/soft-handed monsters
into strange apartments
crying,
thinking about ghost cinema
and pseudo coffee
broken echoes of sharp nights,
harsh glass,
and sad eyes
this is millennium
this is for the crimes in dreams
that we write our crooked names on
street corners and label our belongings
in his or her's
we are trapped on the other side of the
wall
we have shut our own doors
to the howling void
to the hungry children
to the starving hordes
this is why we create
because amidst the spiraling mindsets
of
now-forgottens,
we want to be the light
we want to swallow the dark
peer into our belly,
beast of tomorrow
we've collected our debts to you
we have scattered our soul
behind every painting,
inside every word
catch us if you can

Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity
I laugh like a madman and speak as if witty
I dance with your demons for they dance with me too
I lost mine some time back
They're left dancing in you
For lovers come and go
And so do demons
You know

And I wonder 'neath dimming night light
Why happiness's never seem to sit right
And then become little forgottens
in all the wrong places
Where flesh lies half rotten
In little jump-jerkles
Upon sensing the fear
Of being forgotten, here
I know

That maybe some weren't ever meant
To lead it foolish and giddy
Joyful and witty
Maybe I
Aye I
Was destined to die
Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity

~

Lost within the fire

Lost within the fire
Burning deep inside
Raging like a river
Flames are going wild
Taking in the ashes
Embers at my right
Left to lost forgottens
On this lonesome night

Cower in the corner
Temperatures they rise
Can’t get any farther
Comes as no surprise
Smoke of inhalation
Crowded on the rail
Unknown acts of kindness
Now to surely fail

Pleaded anguished evenings
Hotter still it climbs
What was once a secret
Easy now to find
Take this heart on fire
Quench it with your love
Showers now are looming
Forming up above

Lift me from this feeling
Love me till the end
Tell me it will happen
One more time again
So it no longer lingers
Deep within my soul
Lost within the fire
That I can’t control

The ocean will always whisper to
me it's sea salt kisses,
The moon hung high above it,
Seeing all my ***** and forgottens,
We looked for trouble all night,
Slept when the sun came up,
I felt like a child again.

Theres black filth congregating in the crevice of every ninety degree angle in this building

The woodgrain in the floor invites me to melt into its stream down the hallway through the cracks into the grimy kitchen below

There are ghosts cooking there

Ghosts pacing the hallway where their corporeal form bade them farewell

Ghosts outside lifting weights and running calisthenic circuits

As though there were any merit in the shape of their supernatural form

As though the taste of chicken tenders and french fries still satiated their desire for self destruction

As though the world was still waiting for them, hand outstretched to

Wakeupeatgotoworkeatbacktoworkeat

Pay your bills

Sleep

This is no life for us ghosts -- we soon-will-have-beens -- we memories-waiting-to-fade -- we destined-to-be-soon-to-be-forgottens -- we clinging-to-what-is-nows

All who will not have ears one day had better listen.

Time stamped nearly forgottens crammed into an envelope,
          and sealed so tight with the shut of an eye.
With my teeth bleeding,
      I had no choice but to etch at the sight of things I'd rather not have seen to begin with.
A peri-rim covers the distance through pinching of my skin,
              and a shutter runs through the crest of a wavelength I'm not quite on anymore.
A hesitant with ripening paranoia seeds within and burns at the back of my head.
            The edges narrow in as neurons shift in the spine,
and rip in a hurry.