My best friend was fiction. The ocean where I lived was nothing but an enormous tank capable of sustaining the plastic we created in our own image. On odd days the electric lampshade sun would malfunction and the skin of tourists would turn moldy grey from calcium deficiency or rather a will not to see the fabricated sky for what it was: a cardboard cutout created with the sole intention of comfort.
My number in school was always 33
whether it was outside playing sports or being the 33rd person in line at the cafeteria or hanging that number on the lapel of my shirt like a cross at the top of a hill in a Roman crucifying.
For this my life revolved around that number.
33 reasons to go outside and witness the cruelty
33 socks missing their twin at the bottom of a washing machine
33 ideal mates that always say the wrong thing before the meeting takes place
33 witches hanging at the bottom of a lake for swimming instead of sinking
my favorite fiction is the one that tries so hard to hide under the bed
the one that lies on the front porch step of that man accused of robbery in his 20’s
the one that believes when it’s told the earth is melting
that it will just goop up at the bottom of the devil’s dinner plate

Cake, the meat of culinary delights;
Icing, the sauce.

Cake, the main entree, the special of the night;
Icing, the decorative garnish.

Without Cake, Icing has no purpose
A clump, a blob, of meaningless goop.

1 spoonful of Icing alone and you're done.
Spread out amongst the firm surface of Cake though,
Icing becomes much more interesting, and much more fun.

I am the Cake.
You are the Icing.
Without me, the base, the entree, the meat
You, the sauce, the garnish and blob, don't matter

You can be the Icing to your own Cake or to another
But without me, you'll do nothing but rot teeth and smother

So, to enjoy you, Icing, to the absolute fullest
I must, first, combine the ingredients, stir and bake
Because it is vital, if one is to appreciate your sweet taste,
To properly prepare my foundation, the meat, your Cake.

- BPW

I’ll never forget.
MiniStop, Intramuros.
2016?
I had long graduated, the mortarboard
now a naked head of hair. The gown
now dilapidated jeans, and an overfitting
shirt. The fancy shoes now knockoffs
caked with mud and grime.
The little store was hot. Small.
On walls: baby cockroaches took chances.
Trash bags dog-eared below snack concessions.
A brown goop spun, the tungsten overhead
made no noise. Was there music? Was there
some commentary about love or crudeness on the radio?

Always self-conscious, I retreat to
the inner racks. Magazines lay there vacuumed, unpurchased.
Outside the picture window, an afternoon beamed its sun kiss.
I think I didn’t end up buying anything, because before I could,
some college boys entered. At the instant, I turned to them
and felt curiously incensed. This odd duality of envy and sympathy.
I was you, I’m me now. I want you, I’m not you now.
To look that young yet mature, to have a schedule.
To saunter inside the store before, during, after class. The
choice to enter, to parade, to be so vital.

The college boys, their plackets, collars,
their image. These hot-blooded men finer than me, stronger
than me. All handsome, winsome, reckless and brimmed with
swagger. Me? I stood examining the force, the association.
We’re all merely similar men, and I’m at a similar age, and I can
be a similar form factor. Mimic their teflon skin; shed my stucco,
leatherbound flesh.

And as soon as I attempted to undermine their specificity,
I lost my own place. I found that there’s no connection at all.
Other than I know nothing about the boys,
and the boys know nothing of me.

Jesus was a liar and Ghandi was a fuccboi.

Prophets hate themselves the most.

Try to be pure light and you will never be.

You are not a single drop of ***** in an ocean of ****.
You are an ocean of **** in a single drop. Don't tell me that's not ******* beautiful.

You came from sacks of fat floating around in primordial goop.
Don't tell me that's not ******* beautiful.

You are 99% vacuous void but that 1% still makes you visible to me.
Tell me that's ******* disgusting.

I used to think I was all love and light and that was it.
Everything else was shame.
Everything else was to blame.
Everything else was also me.

I am mostly nothing and mostly darkness.
Don't tell me that's not ******* beautiful.

That despite being a walking maelstrom of empty space and spasmodic dance,
I am a ******* universe expanding in all directions simultaneously.

The only reason you can see the stars in the sky is because of all the emptiness.

The only reason you can look into my eyes is because of the little bit of life that shines through my pupils.

The only reason you can hold me in your arms is because the trillions and trillions of quanta that hold me together hate themselves and love each other because they all know that they hate themselves.

It's because they're entangled in a hot mess of spaghetti, sauce, and melted cheese.
Like a functioning dysfunctional family, we are trying our best and we all hate ourselves but we are trying love each other anyway.
Because we feel it.

Vacuous void. Chaotic dance.
Mostly nothing and a little bit of everything.

There's instant soup
Instant milk
Blogs full'a goop
Bugs in your blink

Instant coffee
Instagram
Love like toffee
Stuck in your spam

Instant high
Instant fluff
Wherever you look
There's bang for your buck

God forbid
Delete it all
Switch it off
Feel the mad withdrawal

And go back to the land
Grow your own
Get a cow or a goat
Forget your phone

Finish the weeding
Chat with a rose
Stand in a summer shower
Smell the smells in your nose

Listen to the night
Owls, foxes, wrens
Watch the slow boiling
Smoke dancing in little rings

I fear that it isnt long enough.
and i cant describe
it sinks
Like a carrot in gravy
Straight emptiness.
Existence begins and we float
characters in a bowl
thick goop holds it together
with no end.

Martin Narrod [Chicago] to Adam Holzrichter [San Francisco, via NYC]*
June 26 2005
Guild Printers Press
122 Bedford
Brooklyn NY, 11211*

I peeled back the polyurethane bandage that wrapped together my two toes where I had dug them into the armoire once again last night. It's a raggedy old mess of green goop like your brother had when he returned from Sicily. Those posters and solipsisms of war, how could we forget, right?

The scene here is really frantic. There's a whole room knotted up with tea heads, loaded up on benzos, looking for green doves or any of the MDMA that came through Fulton Market last week. Mr. Popular is revealing any details, though I expect he'll want more than his own hands throwing around his dining room furniture. I count three days since I heard them through the wall, but I did go out yesterday for a brief walk to buy an 18-pack of ******, just in case I decide to come off the drink for a bit, I do have a blood disease you know that right?

Noon

It was about a month ago, I was at April's house, and I had woken up on the couch, standing up I felt a bit dizzy and realizing I hadn't had a drink of anything for about 12 hours I pulled a Red Stripe from the fridge. I shucked the cap off and put down nearly half of it, it was that cool Jamaica that rocked me man. As I was headed back to the couch I could tell something wasn't right, and that's when it all goes blank- they told me I had suffered a grand mal seizure, sister, brother, and April standing over me with Ouakimbo there too. He gave me those sterile gray straight eyes and a thousand yard stare. Then he popped right up and grabbed my wrist and held it. They put me on a cornucopia of blood thinners and muscle relaxers, it's grand, just ******* grand. I make a fist and my toes wiggle, blink my eyes and my tongue comes out. There is nothing truer than this humanness I now am enjoying. 2 days more they say it'll be before I can go back to the pen and our flat. Geoff just had a baby I read in a post I saw today that Ashley brought in, but i tell you. If you don't bring me a dollar slice from Jack's on Metropolitan you ain't gonna have any of this.

9:00p.m.

First it's cool down the back of the spine, like my bones have unhinged themselves and are resorting their positions to suit a more comfortable order of things. But I repeat, I REPEAT with all SERIOUSNESS. DO NOT TAKE ANY HALLUCINAGINS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - Perhaps I have not explained myself too clearly - Guy is at the ice- the onlyu hope now is some morphine. In dealing with these underwear midettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­tttttttiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii­iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii­iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii­iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiotttt       vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv­vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv­vcccccccccccccc.

The caterpillar marches
Munching from leaf to leaf to leaf
He doesn’t know where he’s going
He doesn’t know where he’s been
He only knows the munching
The hunger in his gut
The fire in his belly
Antennae pointing up
Vigilant for predators
Water and leaves
He doesn’t know where he’s going
It matters not where he’s been

The caterpillar weaves
Instinctively without knowing
Why he must, but weaves he does
A cocoon for the growing
The caterpillar digests himself
Dissolving into soup
Becoming a pod of pain and tears
And caterpillar goop
Alone for weeks he suffers
Reconfiguring
His whole body becoming
A new kind of being

No idea what he’s becoming
No idea what’s in store
Suddenly caterpillar emerges
More beautiful than before
Stronger and more delicate
Lighter than the air
Ready for love and lofty height
A sight beautiful and rare
The butterfly does not look back
To the caterpillar he was
The butterfly flies forward
Embracing whatever comes

Follicle Poem
December 6, 2013

A mental relapse occurs.
I see hands plowing through my head of hair
They continue to grasp at the roots,
as if attempting to expose a truth hidden underneath.
But what secrets could bequeath a hair follicle?
Well, one might tell a tale.

Scared of the dark, a 6 year old Wynn laid awake in bed.
He prolonged the inevitable destitution of a dream state.
No longer wanting to accept a reoccurring nightmare,
he took to a dreary exercise of staying awake in the dark.
One hair follicle today may tell of how,
on that night it did not rise in a panicked state.
Wynn had finally conquered his fear of the dark.

"Something felt different today," said Follicle #567.
A new shampoo.
But more than that, strange scissors.
"Who is this new person cutting Wynn's hair now?"
remarked one hair follicle,
"I wonder what happened to the usual lady?"
She had passed away.

An emerging chest hair observed the extended family has grown recently.
"Darker relatives who look different and live in other regions of the world.
Who are they and why do they get treated differently?
Nobody has heard of the ***** region in the southern hemisphere,
or armpit land where our hair family members supposedly smell weird."
The perspective of a follicle in puberty.

"The loud sound of electricity and gears grinding scares me.
There is a storm which ravishes our lands.
First, a foamy cloud surrounds us.
Next, comes a sharp stinging sensation,
not a pleasant feeling to be set free from your roots.
A tidal wave crashes, washing away my follicle friends and family forever.
Then, the lightning strikes - dooming us all."
A ****** follicle's worst fear.

"We are a persevering bunch.
We cling to our conventions and grow, grow, grow.
But recently Wynn has done something new.
We thought he was feeding us honey,
so treacherous.
Sticky goop and stiff paper will be the end of us all.
Nobody wants to admit follicles are second-class citizens to smooth skin."
Waxing prematurely takes the lives of several million follicles annually.

"A rebel group of follicles known as the 'In-Growns' are up to no good.
They scheme with the pimples, plotting when and where to strike next.
I worry about Wynn - wish he could know we aren't all so ill-intentioned."
Follicle culture is derived from parenting, not just biology or anatomical location.

"The last of my kind, I have been contaminated with chemicals.
My color changed to blue.
I've heard the ancient legends about follicles once turned blonde.
We need to appease the summer sun god.
The others have all shriveled up or been brutally betrayed by the locals.
In hiding, we worry the scissor insurgents will discover our locations.
All I wanted was the freedom to express myself,
to be seen for who I really am - not just some color."
Follicles experience discrimination for numerous reasons.

"Drugs.
I can feeeel them in my DNA.
Something about me has changed and I like it.
Living life on the wild side these days.
I don't shower and don't care if I am greasy.
Every other follicle’s fears are irrational.
I'm gonna spread the word and grow out a bit.
Because that's what they expect of me, isn't it?
I mean, what good could come out of a drugged up follicle,
other than more waste of scalp space?"
Follicles who use drugs recreationally receive negative labels and harsh stigma.

"The wavy goodness from a gel rub,
is the highlight of the week.
We are fine, fresh, and fierce, ready to set the standard for follicle fashion.
If you are one of those lower class follicles,
who can't afford gel.
No worries - some might trickle down...
Just kidding!
Spray supports our monopoly on hair care products."
Fashionable follicles are extra sassy and have socio-economic privilege.

The relapse ends.
My head suddenly feels heavy,
swarmed with the hair follicle chronicles.
And the hands running through my head of hair become inspired.
They begin to tell their tales of times passed in Wynn's life.

Perspective means everything.

I used to stand in awe and watch Grandma making biscuits.
She’d take her wooden bowl, then dip the floor and sift it.
As snowy flour would drift to form a mound of just so much;
She’d form a crater lake of buttermilk and shortening with her loving touch.

She would smile and watch our faces as she squeezed the flour to goop
And transform the mess she made into dough that she would scoop.
A pinch she’d take and make a ball to flatten in her palm.
Then with her thumb she’d press it down, so gently and so calm.

With care she next would take the dough and place it on a pan;
A thumb print etched in dough as she continued with her plan,
To place the pats side by side until the pan was filled
By perfect rows all laid out with hands so quick and skilled.

That cozy pan she placed into an oven warmed just right
And closed the door to seal them in and cook them out of sight.
In timely care she’d pull them free, delicious golden browns
Setting fresh hot biscuits on the table, to banish morning frowns.

Now I stand in awe and think of all the biscuits she has made,
Of all the time her thumb has pressed, as her heart has prayed.
Life finds us now, her children, in life’s wooden bowls
And we feel her loving touch as she leaves her thumbprint on our souls.

For Grandma Mary Grace Kindley Davis
On the occasion of her 105th birthday, February 9, 2007
Presented to her at her Birthday Party the next day.
©2007 Michael S. Davis

Welcome to college!
Here’s a crash course of campus;

Im majoring in procrastination,
And minoring in cramming.
My teacher’s name is Boring,
It’s a wonder I’m still standing.

This class is mumbo jumbo,
While this just makes no sense.
All the kids drink coffee,
And the teachers are all so tense.

I fall asleep at night
With the lump in the next bed snoring.
I put my clothes on right before bed,
I don’t have time in the morning!

The first building here...
Is exactly where?
The next building over...
You need a map I swear!

The café gives you goop.
For breakfast today its gunk.
I skip the middle meal of the day,
For dinner its beer and junk.

People say college is awfully hard;
With teachers, tests and money.
They say studding gives you a cramp.
To me it sounds like camp.

Dropped into perestroika events
and I don’t really know myself.
I talk differently than my driving desires
I’m a less apt projection of who I want to be.
I can honestly say sometimes I might be the original
but that’s a last resort in boring places.
Someone once had a quote
about how it’s foolish to know yourself.
But I get so **** scared.
Nothing to hold.
Not even a floor for my shoes.
Not even sure what shoes best suit me.
I’m free to make this soul go anywhere,
Yes, Mr. Voltaire, ****** too free.
Mr. Holy Roller says Jesus already came with his plow truck
and paved a way for me.
But which ways did he pave,
God, where will it all lead?
God, which way is best for me?
Still I might not be supposed to know myself,
But The Self
that we all share.
You and me babe.
and that dog and that deer
and that grass and that car
and that lamp post.
All the same.
All the universe’s
and all the other universes’ weight on my head
that keeps being ****** into a vortex
in between where everything’s all the same goop.
All the same stuff. What am I doing living with it?
******.

“Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself would never become a butterfly.” -Andre Gide

An announcement, dear spoons, it has come to my attention,
That knives are in fact the superior invention,
They cut and they dice, and they bring us sliced bread,
While for spoons, I'm afraid there's not much to be said,
They're good for the stirring and sipping of soup,
They can help you eat anything; well, as long as its goop,
They can't even manage to show a proper reflection,
Try gazing at one, it upends your direction,
Oh spoons, you buffoons, you round-bellied fools,
Try slicing, not scooping, you inelegant tools,
Knives dress to ****, while you spoons are such slouches,
And knives are quite charming; you lot are all grouches,
It's clear that knives are the superior race,
They'll put you dumb spoons back into your place,
At the bottom of the drawer, way down with the forks,
Alongside the can opener, and a screwer of corks,
You're the **** of the table, I despise your skullduggery,
That's why I declare knives the finest of cutlery.

Standing solid and still
just like the red oak it once was.
I trust it will hold me.
It’s sturdy and reliable.
Like the man who once sat in it.
The man who once held me.

It’s a coffee and cream color with
highlights of gold
and low lights of auburn
and each crack and stain tells  
a story

The Maleficent purple stain
on the back right leg.
a toddler that would grow to be me
running with a PB&J in hand
unaware of my brother's Hot Wheels Derby
taking place beside the table.
All it took was one untied shoelace
and all I remember is a symphony of tiny cars
clinging and clanging
and four year old me
falling face first into the tile
As the PB&J propelled forward
smearing brownish, purple goop.

The crack where your left shoulder
might touch if you leaned back.
I honestly don't even know what it's from.
Maybe an argument that got too heated?
Or simple ware and tear over the years?
I never asked. 
I’ll never know.

This chair brings me both
comfort and pain.
Comfort when I sit after a long day on my feet.
Pain when I walk by and stub my toe unexpectedly.
Comfort when I remember all the times he held me in it.
And pain when I remember he will never hold me again.

There once was a man who liked to eat grunion
he ate them with ketchup and onion
he ate them for lunch
he ate a whole bunch
he ate so many they gave him a bunion

There was a lady who liked to eat cheese
but when she ate it she started to sneeze
she'd sneeze and she'd cough
till her hat would fall off
and she developed a terrible wheeze

There was a young girl who ate cantaloupe
while she rode on the back of an antelope
she rode along fine
and continued to dine
till her antelope tripping, slid down a *****

There was a boy who liked mango
when he ate it he did the fandango
he'd throw out the peels
then with a click of his heels
he would dance a beautiful tango

There was a lady who loved carrots
but so did her large group of ferrets
if her ferrets were there
she had to give them a scare
to keep them away from her carrots

There once was a man who liked to eat soup
but when he did it made his ears droop
it was hard to recoup
with ears covered with goop
but he just couldn't give up his soup

There was a young lad who liked waffles
Though they made him feel really awful
he ate them with butter
then he would sputter
and develop a terrible cough-ful

There was a man who loved to eat stew
but when he ate it his face would turn blue
it was truly a ghastly hue
he looked like he had the flu
as if he was sick through and through

There once was a lady who liked custard
she ate it with pickles and mustard
a strange combo, she'll grant
since she's not even pregnant
when she was asked she'd always get flustered

All the words in my head bubble to the surface,
thick black goop, a mess of words of no real use,
they just hover, linger and ooze.
Cold night, fist fight, darker shades of blue,
Closed doors, corridors, I don't live here anymore.
A house of stone and words of glass we throw to waste our time,
Monday news, funeral shoes, let's do another line.
She won't come back, heart attack at the age of forty-nine,
Cross-dressers, gloomy weather, valentine be mine.
Closed doors, corridors, I think I've lost my mind.
Closed doors, corridors, I don't live here anymore.

Your lies leave trails of blood
From soles of feet to top of head

Your Fingers such glorious ones
Pushed into my ***
Oh how crass you say?
Wiggling in that tight crevice

Oh Please your hurting me!

You sneer hearing my plea
Fingers dry now four are in that tight spot
Tears of pain paint my cheeks
Laughter is heard as hair is yanked

Opening me up more
Pushing the fifth inside
I am burning alive

You are hurting me I cry!

Fist now inside

No! Don't! Please!!!

The pain like a hot poker against the skin

As your fist shoves past the rim
Fingers digging their way through the flesh
Your snickers vibrate within my chest

I can't defend such brutality
Your elbow deep inside
Screams pierce the air
All You do is stare

Your **** grows hard and harder still
As Your fingers pull further up the track
Plowing through barriers
Like Your talk and don't forget Your lies


I can feel the blood as it slides down my thighs
buried to the shoulder inside of me
Eyes bulge as the pressure grows

You torterous traitor escapes my mouth

Met only with a harder push up the ***

Face down on the ground
Unable to move
You have me so bound
Red liquid pours from my lips
As Your **** presses my hip

I trusted you
I loved you as well
I gave it all to you willingly
Including my free will

Now what is this
I hear Your chants
I didn't want all that you grunt
*****
*****
*****
All you needed to cure your itch

Backside covered in scars
Never seen by any
Everyone thinks you are a superstar
Hey! wait a minute you scream
Shut up ***** I treat you like a Queen

Your shoulder covered in ****
Teeth bite the side of my breast
As you laugh surely girl you jest
I will take what I want you cry
If you do not like it

******* lay there an die

Your fingers to hand to arm all the way
You plowed up my ***
With a definite skill
Plowing through flesh
Your worm shows your thrill

Stop I plead

My life draining
as You **** spewing your seed

The world goes back
As Your hand reaches its path
Gripping my heart
Pulling out as I am dying fast

You just couldn't let me be happy
You pompous ******* *****
If only I had once bitten your ****
No I was a fool
I gave You it all

Now heres my death waiting at your door
You laugh as your arm  pulls free
Covered in goop and debris
Fist yanked free of the now split hole

My heart within its grips
Dripping my life out
All over the floor
It really doesn't matter
I was only your *****

One more prize for your display
One more heart
Ripped from the ***
Which is your specialty after all
Gets you off all that blood and gore

Pain be ******
Even with a pretty little *****
He stands over the body
Smiling with pride

Your lips, mouth and face
Arms, legs, and trunk
******* and *****
Hair and such a tight ***

Your screams, whimpers
whines and moans
Tears, blood, juices and crap
boldAll MINE didn't YOU SEE

Defy Me?

Leave me?

Dare me to try
I took everything you have
Everything you are

Even your heart
oh yes your soul

I came when you cried

Now shut the **** up

**DIE!

NOTHING WORKS, I CANT CRY, I CANT SCREAM ALL PASSION IS LOST
A CRY FOR HELP THROUGH A PICTURE OR MAYBE A SUBTEL HINT IN A POEM LONG FORGOTTEN
I GASP BUT NO AIR FILLS THESE DRIDED HUSKS NOT ONE MOMENT OF RELIEF NOTHING TO END THIS SUFFOCATION CONSTANTLY ON THE EDGE OF DEATH YET TO MY BITTER BELIEF MY HEART CONTINUES TO MOVE, HOW?!! HOW CAN YOU STILL BE BEATING THE KNIVES PROTRUDING THROUGH YOU AND OUT MY BACK STILL OZE A REDISH GOOP THE WALKING TRACK ACROSS YOU MORE BEATEN THAN A TENDERISED STEAK, THE BLACK HATRED SEEPING FROM YOUR CORE CORRODING EVERY SURFACE IT TOUCHES
EVERY HAPPY FEELING YOU ENCOUNTER LIKE SOME HELLISH ACID EATING AWAY AT ANY INCH OF HUMANITY REMAINING .... AND YET YOU STILL BEAT.

just finishing off monday
sarah woke up not groggy
this took practice
time for a coffee
banana granola greek style yogurt
quietly on her phone alone at home
perched on the sofa
a thought strays back to heartbreaks
heaven slips on it’s loafers

on time she quits lipsticks and ties coat
fluffs the hair
smiles
clicks down the stairs
she sounds attractive
tight and a skirt
smart tasteful coat
button’s no broach
appropriate

down the stairs and out the door
outside brain makes it up
all the same mornings
tunnel vision
work

down the street there’s magic
rays of it spot through sodden clouds
searching people
one to one to one, looking for Sarah
both violent and divine

Sarah weaves the street
walking not the fastest
used to like the rasmus
doesn’t think of coffee
maybe what’s for lunch
then the sky oppressed her
vibrating darker than death

shock from eyes of lightning  
for a moment buildings glitch
they lag fade and stutter
people stop and blink
they fear, look up for another
sarah feels a cold
heartbroken and lifeless
the world gets lower
slower
time’s flipped in a crisis
screaming colours from their fleeting faces
seep into her jelly legs
then her skin it turned to water
body a puddle
a gloopy goop of eyes and blubber
some hair on some putty
sun on her frogged eyes
one falls down the gutter
everyone chokes on a splutter

it most seldom expected
the day Sarah randomly melted

Bacon
Grease
Unpleasant slickness
Oil
Flith
A ***** feeling that you're overwhelmed by so you just want to get into a shower and scrub your skin raw
The one time my sisters and I played in mud and were covered in gritty goop
Losing the handle to the outside faucet
Cold icy water
Jumping into a creek and getting soaked
Cold water and cramping up, drowning
The ocean's waves pulling me under
Fear of drowning and ocean water forced down my throat
Salty water and the taste of the sea
Salt
Bacon

Oh cute little thing
I like your contour

you look pretty funny when you're cold
you get these lovely wrinkles
especially in the middle region
nearly dendritic
more like the cracks in the earth

and your satchel breathes on its own
like a brain if it had lungs for itself
but more like an amoebic celestial body squirming around in some primordial goop
I think that's pretty cool

you're a pink and brown mushroom emerging from a forest of black wiry moss

concentrated around you and
all growing in your direction

almost lifting you up and out
and then further away fading

the way the water gets clearer
above a sand bar

and then a great convergence
a crashing of two great waves
against each other

forming a wall of spindly tendrils
before the whirlpool

i'm really gonna miss the times
where we could just hang out

i'm really gonna miss the sighs
when you pleased my mind to goop, inside out

oh but things are changing
things won't be the same

i find my self anticipating, yet worried
wondering if you'll forget my name

i'm really gonna miss the jokes
laugh-laughin' all night long

i'm really gonna miss your voice
making my heart skip every time

oh but things are changing
things won't be the same

i find myself anticipating, yet worried
wondering if you'll forget my name

i'm really gonna miss the pain
that my mind trades for loving you

i'm really gonna miss the time
i willingly spent between us two

oh but things are changing
things won't be the same

i find my self anticipating, yet worried
wondering if you'll forget my name

yeah, i'm really gonna miss a lot of things
but out of all of them,

i'll miss you.

I don’t recognize you, but you’ve returned, oh it
must be you. No one else comes here but you.

Do you remember this music?

Kaleidoscopically gemmed it repeats, perhaps too
delicately—a quiet, tinkling knell, fishtailing through the
glimmering rain—mauve—soft-soaping the soil to darker clumps
beneath—soppy—slowly sinking so pretty, yet
terrifying now you’ve stepped into and through each
silted deepness, holding time.

This music begs you still—it has not stopped begging since—
to step further inside the wet loam (You clutch time now.)
To press down on it, in it, and listen tender the key you touched in
life between moments. It’s the reason you’ve returned.

You won’t, it’s not music, this feels like a baby’s head you’re on, you
cringe. About to cry.

Again, I’m sorry, but you have to—you have to feel it
scarily give a little. Feel it sink, infolding inside-out through its
thin pleura overflowing, always overflowing with the visceral
sap of everything on it—(I mean really everything.)—this
glistening ick, this frog-soil—moist, sickly cloying, susceptible
almost to light. And breathing.

It’s about to give out under your feet.

And kaleidoscopically gemmed it repeats, can you hear it?

Yes, you could be stepping on all their naked lungs, but there’s
nothing to fear, it’s an eternal field of their lungs—pink and gasping—
and that’s all there is here.  

Feel with your foot, like me. Is it alive? Or is it life? Listen, it
bleats a note. Why so sweet if, by touching it, we’ve made it drip
first truth from its tongue, look!—the blood of its eyes’ red
rivulets. Of its heart. The slightest breach it was. Barely an
opening

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to force you. If I was only me, I’d
leave it be, so it could spare us the look at the inner red that yokes
flesh to spirit. But you arrived here, and—listen, now it’s been
done, do not close your eyes.

You didn’t want to see this, I know—the sticky gum or muck that
licks over the fibrous bridges. Keeps them glued down and
invisible in the other world. It is all much better when the mucilage
does not ooze out. When the form is skin-tight, because that’s how
it works best. Without you probing its pores.

But now do you see, probing its pores, what you may find?
Look. Now do you see why the music has begged you?

What rests underneath there—what you may find in that dark
indigo clay which the shamans dug and pressed over their
blackened eyes in the night-trances—glows transparent somehow.
In pulses. Like Aurelia, the silver moon jelly.

Now it is just within your reach.

Light would pour to the other side, and their mouths would stiffen
with several infinite unintelligible syllables remaining stuck there
under their tongues. As it poured, they felt their blood replaced
in a surge with veinless essence, which sustained in its flow
through them something of precarious beauty—ascending, swirling
itself in air, then back into again, again returning to the home of homes
within them.  

The silver-moon-jelly-clay is continuously poised on the tip
(of not being clay).
About to break into splendor, into finally birth-giving of real breath.
Of meaning to breath, and to breathing.

This is what feeds, unknowing to them in that world, their field of lungs.
But you will know instantly when you feel it, that by feeling
(in feeling)
you have really always known.

Did you reach for it? Did you feel it in that second? You did not, I see
(you were so close!)
for now we’ve passed the origin symmetry and are sinking up! Going
deeply back up through the sticky goop with red glue in our hair,
through the moist-frog-ick-soil, choking dirt again, squishing loam
with our heads, shooting upward like falling, hearing lungs, and now
out, atop the surface again, in this bare garden that grows only under.

The skies above, still mauve, and the rain lips quietly the same
melody which, kaleidoscopically gemmed, repeats. It was all as quick as
nothing.

And, as I look at you, I see you’ve already forgotten
everything.

And now you’re leaving me! Fading back through the spectral
break in the clouds, whoever you were. Whoever it is you became.

I did honestly believe this was to be that one moment when, together,
we’d finally get to touch it. Press it like real sun to our blackened
eyes. I cannot tell you, it has felt like the one each time.

But I know to wait. I can wait. In this world I keep fluttering hope
in my hand. And you, whoever you’ll be, will return here.
You always do.
Do you ever remember why?
It’s because, when you leave through the clouds to go back to
that world, you are still. Always.
Clutching time.

As the washer clinks and clunks its way toward clean clothes.
I sit and think while listening to the rhythms of the machine
as it cleanses all. If it could only cleanse my mind of random
thoughts of nothing, that seem always to get in the way.

To clear a path to thoughts of substance, paving the way to
literary greatness, or at least a word that wiggles itself into
some mediocre write which I know shouldn’t have made it to
someone else's eyes.

I need that garbled clump of goop that feeds my appetite for
writing, as it dislodges remnants of times gone by, things that
are shaken loose from deep within my soul, while it agitates
and spins me in new and different directions.

It is what life has given me to work with, an abundance of
good and bad, new and old, fresh and stale, with a vehicle for
me to climb aboard to explore the deep recesses of my mind
and soul. It seems that vehicle stalls at times and hesitates
before it is able to start again and continue on its way.

To take me out of this non productive place I’m in, to that
crisp clean white piece of paper so my pen will flow to places
it’s never been.


http://www.charlesdennispoetry.netne.net

© 2009 Charles Dennis

You are
the enemy
of reading.
I thought you
were a cataract.
Get out of my eyes,
and please let me see!

You are brown and eating frozen grapes in the grass: petting the hair of some tattered doll, singing a song I taught you. I try to conjure a face, but all I know is the back of your small head—an afro littered with dandelion residue. You are lucky to be nothing more than a thought...because I don’t know if I could have ever been as good to you as you will never be to me. The exchange between parents and children seems to go this way: you - a wonder; I - everything I hope you never become. A spongy piece of angel food cake, as elusive as love, I would wish you didn’t put your tiny pink tongue, lapping, at our French doors—the dry swipe of play goop on our marble countertops. Maybe we ate avocados and blood oranges together, drank rice milk together; maybe I told you all about your star sign, gave you a nickname like: Mia Amata.
Our talks are never without melody—a miracle, like a thick, forbidden plum in a desolate dream forest; silk in the hallow of a black tree.

I shouldn’t be so sad.
All of the money I’ve earned so far has been my own...
All that is mine remains just, so—every decision made out of lust, habit, or both.

I see, I see it everyday. False smiles, different from the suburban trophy wife. These smiles tell their story. You've never seen these smiles, felt them? Then you haven't noticed yourself making them. "How are you?" To the cashier at the grocery store, followed by a smile. but really, you don't care how they are, your busy, I don't blame you, busy with nothing to do, I do it too. Simple hellos let others know your normal. What's normal? How many times has that argument been fought? 'what's normal'  I can tell you, but like anything, its all relative. Normal is being content having a good job holding some sort of stature being above those not normal keeping the social stigmas living them, naturally. I just realized I can't tell you what normal is without writing too much. Look at the magazines and those big T.V's
they can tell you better than me. But from what I told you... Being content. None of us are. You got yourself a good job, good job, you now have status among the living, good job, your not that alcoholic *** living on the streets, your not begging for change, you give it, not because you want to but to show that you have that to spare, good job, you are an outstanding citizen contributing the only way we realize how, by spending, good job, but, oh there's always a but,why, oh why the but, tell me my cups half empty, but I assure you sir, I've only drank a quarter of my coffee, my americano to be sure, in a 16oz cup to be surer, but to the but's, that is what we can call life, or reality. But what?! You hate your job and your bigger house only made you smile when you bought it and when you flush your demons down your ebony marbled **** catcher. I smile then too, the ladder that is and without the marble. but you still feel unfulfilled,
and still, yea, still, you don't know why, but your not content with not knowing, because then the boogie man is real and you look the fool, so we give our little smiles to tell the others "I'm normal" because we don't think we are. but, if they don't know,  then, its fine. But, thats not all. If you haven't noticed that 'habit' in you yet, then your smiling that same smile to yourself. Because if you don't know then your free. Free of the burden of fearing you don't know. Oh but brother, I don't blame you, no, I don't hate you, I do it too. I guess what makes me different is that I noticed. But, Does that really make me different? Does it really matter? I don't know. I don't know if I ever will. I'd like to say, "but thats okay" but my americano is almost gone, my cups about empty. If i was really content, then fear wouldn't be my 'companion'. Fear of money fear of love or lack of, really, fear of progressing, fear of failure, fear of moving back becoming less, not fear of death but of dying unnoticed. Fear of not being called of rejection of life. I've noticed, with myself, that when one fear grows strong, the other worries grow into fear, they rise to the surface, goop in my pores, suffocate me and I hear myself plea with death to take me so I won't have to take myself because everything would be easier done dead. But, I don't want to die, I want the easy button, but I don't want that,
but I do, then I get confused and lost in this push and pull which is my devil which is my angel tugging on my ears as i scream "Shut up! Shut the **** up!" Sometimes though, I remember to ask, to be honest with myself. Why am I  afraid? What am I afraid of? Is that really what I'm afraid of? Why am I afraid of that? Is it because of my past? Or because of urgency? I keep asking. Sometimes remembering hurts, but, thats how to clean your pores, I find it sometimes, sometimes i find what makes my devils grow. Most of the time I don't like it. Because I feel ashamed of it. Which is why I bury it deep. but, if you allow it to be, accept that it is true, to bare that shame. These fears are walls, friend. Pass through them. Are you still listening to me? Its okay if your not. Punch me in the ******* face because thats what you might think to do. Who am I to tell you your fears are just walls that rebuild if you break them down and close if you build doors, that these walls aren't solid, which is why you can pass right through them? Huh? Who am I?! I don't know. Just know though that I tell you to tell myself.
because I forget because I give better advice to others, because I should give that advice to myself, because I breathe, I think, I die.
We all die. But death is not different from life. Just like I am not different from you. But how do I know that when I don't even know who I am. Who am I but another but in life. I am that ant which carries the maggots, I am the creak in the door, I am why your car won't start, I am the sugar in your coffee, I am your god, I am god. But don't worship me. Worship yourself. you are the smell of the rotting trash.
you are the water we drink. You are god. Everything is. So what? So what's the point?To remember that we don't have to give each other false smiles anymore. The more of us that open ourselves, the more that will choose to open too. What does that mean? I don't really know. I have answers. But what are answers from another. An answer from yourself answers more. At least for me. Your worried if your right though. Right? Believe, Breathe, Be patient. Again, this I tell myself. Your still listening? Thanks. I end my rant to ****. Is that crude? rude?
But...

Tonight my already fragile soul took yet
another
hit. And I am lonely.
Its a disease. Spreading through my heart to my shaking fingers and my watering eyes.
I want to scream. To run. To curse. I want to rid myself of this disease. I want to chop myself up, melt myself until I am a puddle of goop on the floor.
I want to recreate myself so that I can be someone that you want. That anyone wants.
I am so tired of being torn down and told to rise. I want to run away.
I want to be loved.

Life isn't happy endings
and the streets aren't paved with gold
and fortune favours the other guy
no matter if he's brave or bold

While we all dream of fairy tales
and once upon a times
its my sad duty to tell the truth
in this disappointing rhyme

Ladies if you kiss a frog
you'll just get frog goop on your lips
there'll be no dashing prince
broad of shoulder, thin of hips

And gentlemen I kid you not
there is no sleeping beauty
the only girls who sleep all day
are those who work night duty

(and trust me, you don't wanna be waking them up)

No magic lamp, or secret word
will help you change your lot
so **** it up my buttercups
what you have is all you've got.

Wind and speed and dust and crumbs and ash and crash and
Blood
Heat and shriek and dark and damp and
Broken
Chunks and goop and hair and limbs
All splattered
Like feather pillows
Stain and pain and rash and rush and
Panic
Shook and shock and tears and fears
All realized
Red and black and blue and bruised and ruined and
Soft,
Still,
Nothing.