Technology, Technology
It runs our lives
From the alarm to the evening TV
Just count your sheep
in the hopes of a six hour sleep
Dragging, pushing, poking and grinding
All for what? A day where we swing away?
Reminise and rewind our lives gone astray
All our friends are easily connected
So why do we feel so alone
Looking for love on a computer screen
We’re all ******* with the naturalist gene
Nature’s monitored via tv screens
With copious numbers of LCD’s, CD’s, Mp3’s to sail the seas
Heaven forbid the ******* sneeze
That’s technology you can’t see.

Everyday caught
In the labyrinth of mind,
I am,
Where dreams,
And desires
And lust,
From nothing
Conspire something.

Destination: Canada Water.
The next station is Surrey Quays.
Doors will open on the right-hand side.
Exit here for Goldsmith's College.

In the cerebellum
Fragments flash cerebrum bright:
Wheels in tunnels burn,
A neural screech amplified deep,
As waves of electrons churn,
And in multiple places keep.

This stop:
- My birth -
Is in Westminster!

It’s time:

Do you love me?
DO YOU LOVE ME?
          Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

In the space-time continuum,
The labyrinth is forever,
Within a fourth dimension.

It’s time …

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

Lost in the labyrinth: a journey to an exit.
The Overground train pulls!
And from floor to ceiling,
Between vertical orange pins,
A medley of languid listless limbs lulls,
       Seated hips,
       Angled legs,
       Dangling feet,
And neck-less heads,
Lost, ghoul-like,
The disconcerted move doggedly on,
Everywhere somewhere; but forever nowhere
Through London's hills and bogs.

From  STOP to STOP,
In the labyrinthine network,
In tubes splayed out on cubes,
Of bright brushed viscose comfort,
Overhead, the ads exhort:

       Top Up Your Soul,
       Fast Forward Your Escape
And
       uSwipe
       uSwitch
       uSave

Like these,
A hundred escalating messages,
Each more insistent than the last,
Compel, enough to distract,
So man’s desire enslaves his heart.

Its time…

         You love, right?
YOU LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

How? Why?
Has bacterial sludge,
Built these edifices of glass and steel.
This labyrinthian cage,
Whose walls race up at the speed of light,
While the inner commuter flame gutters,
Everywher, in multiverses,
Supernovas explode in showers.
And for a moment, in the moment, The Overground chromatic glows.

New Cross Gate, Canada Water, Southwark.

Lit and digital and LCD:
        
  ALL CHANGE, PLEASE.
  THIS TRAIN TERMINATES HERE

A few automated steps, and:
       Southwark,
       Green Park,
       Then Baker Street,
Appear, fade and disappear.

Now walking down Belsize Road,
On the evening of the
Super Gibbous Moon,
As it rises high over the Ziggurat dimensions of the Alexandra Estate,
And all is blood orange at dusk,
As I, a slinking silhouette,
Make for the event horizon of home,
For surely given, and taken,
A few more bends, another turn,

It’s time, again.

         Love, right?
         LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
FREE ME.

To the event horizon of consciousness,
To that black hole at the core.
In death's star-like eye,
Embrace, pass through,
(Fear not),
On, through the labyrinth northward,
Entering and exiting,
We go awhile, a little longer.

Stars, my Stars,
Again, it's time.

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
DEATH FREE.
LOVE!
BE,
WINGS FREE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

One more stop:

       New Bond Street.

GET BEYOND
DESIRE,
BEYOND THE LABYRINTHEAN LIE,
CONSUMER, DIE!
BE
MATERIAL FREE.

Last stop:

       No-name, this one:

BE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL.

SAY IT:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     DEATH FREE.
     LOVE!
     BE,
     WINGS FREE:
    
     WE ARE:
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

Gilles rushed into the kitchen and grabbed the knife
slashed it across his throat and dropped it on the tile.

Coming to his knees, he felt a faint relief,
Liquid Crystal Display leaked out of his neck,
and down onto the tiles in a puddle
he touched the mercurial 'it'

It pooled onto the floor and images appeared
an image of a beautiful man with a perfect body
an image of endless money, cash and credit
his childhood home, mother and father.
a kissing couple,
an image of hi-
                          -mself
and seeing these,
he had the queerest of feelings
a false déjà vu

as the last drops of It leaked down from his neck
Gilles finally came to -
a large pool of blood,
and blurry vision
to black.

I scroll through the pages redundantly
Left swipe right swipe as if suddenly
What I seek will appear in this app or that
I'll have what I need if I say yes to this ad
What did she do and why do I care
I guess I do as I continue to stare
Lost in this screen that holds all parts of me
Yet nothing close to what I really need
Do I know what that is can I find it as I swipe
Left and right up and down is my life
So convenient what a way to escape reality
Lost in the tangle of today's technology
Should I break away it this just how life is today
What would happen if the screen were to fade away
I'm too scared to find out so ill stick to my fancy gadgets
Oh I should live in the "real" world but I'm better off without it

i believe in a thing called love,

in toxic oxytocin tears and

jagged daggers of emotions

that hit hard and quick and deep

leaving lovers dazed and aroused

on kitchen tiles and sticky dance floors.

i do believe in love, i do,

in blood filled love potions

you put so much of yourself into it

that she just has to love you

she has to, she must,

and she does, she does,

ugly crying but ****,

for you, all for you,

please just hold on

she pleads -

mucus filled tears cascading down her face,

*******,

thighs,

pooling on the floor,

making the doctors both cringe with disgust and

simultaneously lean forward with interest

swaying in non-existent breeze -

and you die with your first kiss in your fist

and a piebald smile that splinters her inside forever

but i guess that isn't your fault, right?

i do believe in love, i do, i do,

in unfettered devotions

in ****-that-guy,

the quality relationship improvement show,

because you want to be a lover

but the guy ain't right

so just make him up

and use a real guy as his outside

you love him sanded, smoothed, buffed, painted

with rims and an inexplicable 48 inch lcd screen

you'll officially get hitched but don't cry

divorce is common and either way it doesn't matter

just look pretty and make sure to squint.

i do believe love, i do

i believe in

poisoning yourself for Juliet

rather than taking her pulse

to taking dear John's heart and

jumping on it happily

because you love him sooooo much

but like, the world has conspired against you,

not with guns and bombs and videotape

but with, like, freely made decisions,

peer pressure and jagermeister  

his blood makes pretty patterns on your

milk white thighs and i guess that

he sticks around for the show

oh boy, i believe in love, i do, that

6 and 9 aren't meant to be together

they just fit, that

there's no place for 'pure' in love cos it's all

pain and *** and spit

as for 'star crossed lovers'

the stars are always crossed

else eclipses would be boring and

each lost lover on a course

i do believe in love, i do,

in the sweetheart who lispes

licking earlobes and bottom lip biting

of metal snakes, happy fates

and piscean traits,

exuding high fructose glucose syrup

instead of saliva

so kiss them carefully or you'll

sugar high and sugar low

and sugar crash and burn

with every cosmic turn and

oh, i believe in love, lovers, oh i do, i do,

in the swirls of black and white that

play ying and yang

that kiss and grate and fornicate

forming a pasty grey

declaring that their grey is the

greyest, greatest, gayest grey

i do believe in love, i do,

bridezilla has destroyed new york in the

quest for the perfect dress as

otherwise her,

sorry,

their,

day will be ruined

milan and paris are shaking in their loius vuittons

praying they will be passed over

oh anna wintour,

just one more working day

please let the cake be next on it's list,

deliver us, oh lagerfeld, from

polyester blend shrouds in hideous off white,

amen.

but yeah,

i do believe in love, i do,

in philosophers that never tire

who'll be debating whether

kpattz, robsten, or my name for it,

sorry, them,

pattenwart,

really love each other

or are merely feeding off the media **** storm

to soothe their fragile bodies

and appease their shiny deities.

so yeah, i know what it involves

every ingredient labelled and shelved

sampled and sicked up and

given 5 star reviews on amazon

with words of advice

and i do believe in love.

i do.

oh, i do

so friends,

hold out your bleeding hearts

apply some anti-skeptic

your wounds will heal in 30 days

give or take a century.

And suddenly it was ten-til-two.
And where had the day gone?
It had been whispered into the liquid
crystals of my computer screen,
and drowned in a bowl of leftover pad thai.
I suddenly was supposed to feel tired,
but instead I was depressed because tomorrow
was calling, and I didn't want to run.
My eyes were watering, all of a sudden.
And the screen kept on whispering.

Arthur McKnight was a powerful man and New York was his playground.  Not that he ventured out anymore at night now that he had met Evangeline.  The long days of mind-numbing numbers he crunched managing Wall Street hedge funds had taken their toll on him over the years, but becoming intimate with Evangeline had saved him, had changed him in ways so fundamental that for him she was all that mattered.

     Arthur no longer noticed these subtle differences.  He daydreamed by the dim LCD light of stock tickers, craving the touch that only his woman could bestow upon him.  He had surrendered completely to her bliss.

     These days when he woke to her already gone from his Upper West Side apartment all that was left of her presence was a lipstick kiss on the mirror and a bottle of Sally Hansen Tangerine Orange nailpolish.  The quiet was deafening, but that bottle of Sally Hansen left on the bathroom counter held the promise of Evangeline's return.

     It was just after 7 p.m. when Arthur made it home and he could already sense her.  She was coming.  He strode with purpose to his master suite, spying the black thigh-highs and silky red dress he had laid out for her arrival.  The waiting was unbearable, and Arthur finally broke, needing Evangeline so badly he could smell her perfume, could taste her in his throat.  It was time; no more waiting.

     "You look lovely tonight, Evangeline," Arthur croaked aloud as he pulled the first of the thigh highs onto his shaven legs...

the night before your funeral
i coped by engaging in 100 different things
you would have never approved of.

i made the eyes at alyssa,
a girl who wasn't mine.

and i only did it because i know
she would never have me,
and that's always appealing.

lauren was late to the gathering.
she made four fractured souls
sitting around a wobbly table
at some arrogant sports bar.

i didn't touch her.
i didn't want to.
i wanted isolation,
yet invited these people
to make me play pretend
at some busy rednecker establishment.

i talked a lot about music.
LCD's latest mostly.
it's easy to hide behind the trivial.

we stopped at a gas station.
i bought beer for chase and tyler.
i hate beer, it just makes me feel
an idiot sense of accomplishment
when this 19-year-old pulls age off
via beard.

lauren left at 3.
i didn't say much.
i kissed her weakly.
she accepted it.
understood it.
had taken notice of my wandering mind.

alyssa slept over,
she had been locked out of her cousin's house.
in the morning, i made her breakfast, coffee.
asked her if she had decided to be my best friend or not.
it was a running joke to her, and she smiled, said she needed more time
leaving it in "potential" status.

i need a best friend.

alyssa left when i took a shower.
as i got ready,
i complained to tyler about lauren.
i don't know if i meant it,
but i listed quite a lot of grievances.
(is it my age?
am i restless?)

i put on a suit and tie. i didn't look at the weather.
i didn't realize it was forecasted to be a sauna.

i got in my car and drove to prague.
the Parks Bros. funeral home parking lot
was spilling into the streets, with SUVs
and heavy duty trucks.

i parked my car a couple blocks down.

walked into the parlor
where you were to make your great showcase
in that open casket.

my father gave your eulogy.
he had been your minister for a few years,
and had loved you for more than 10.

you had died in my mind months earlier.
when i found out about the leukemia.

when i walked past your body on display,
i looked briefly.
all i really saw were your sideburns.
they looked ridiculous.

everyone told me i looked handsome in my suit.
god.
was i so desperate for a compliment that i overdressed
for a funeral?

as we stood outside, it didn't take long for people to laugh.
talk about work,weather, ****** hair, baseball, and girlfriends.
"i hope the heat keeps us from being sad at the cemetery."

i drove to your final plot in the back of the procession.
my dad tried to explain some metaphor at the site, but it fell flat.
he said a prayer over your body.

then he asked me to lead a song i didn't know.
everyone looked at me.

i tried to pass the responsibility.
but eventually started lacklusterly.

i hope there's a god leonard.
i hope that you made it.
and if you get a chance to speak with him,
tell him to play favorites,
and make me a favorite.
that's the only way
i will ever make it.

I went and bought a "Smart" house
in a stylish part of town.
It cost me a cool million
but its features did astound.
I can control the lights and locks
with apps on my smartphone.
I can view cam every room
to make sure no ones home.
The shutters and the blinds will rise
or drop at my command.
I can start the fireplace
while flying from Milan.
The automated kitchen
can prepare a gourmet meal.
and place my grocery order
making sure I get good deals.
In my den a giant wall
is a high res LCD
It shows me sports
and other sorts
of lovely greenery.
You'd think this place is perfect
and you're nearly right of course.
I'd still like to lose the talking scale
that says "Get off, You Horse!"

when the sweethearts left,
we took off our token smiles
and overly-kind eyes.

my roommate grabbed a beer,
quickly ****** it off,
i put on "beat connection" by lcd,
and the derailment of the night
began with some synth and burps.

i made a *** of coffee,
went outside,
the neighbors were having a party,
making a stew,
grilling chicken,
drinking,
drinking,
drinking,
and exhaling enough smoke to signal the natives.

"are you drinkin' coffee muthafucka?"

"hi, i'm josh, and yes."

"the name's chase."

"nice to meet you." *******.

before i knew it chase, our neighbors,
and about three people i didn't know
were in my apartment.

chase looked at a picture of lennon in
our living room.
asked me my favorite beatles album.

"probably sgt.peppers."

"you like that gay ****?"

"if that's gay ****, yes i like gay ****."

he grunted with rednecker royalty.

"the white album is probably my second favorite,"
i offered.

"man, the white album is the ****.
there is nothing else."

someone said they had some fire, if anyone was interested.
everyone was.

there was a dark-skinned boy, with snow white teeth and a fake afro, rapping as i clumsily played an acoustic.
there was a 26-year-old ***** and his 43-year-old wife
smoking a bowl in my bedroom,
there was my roommate vomiting on the carpet,
there was everyone
and
there was
me.
there was everyone
and
there was
me.

We are a generation
Of instant gratification
Most of our lives
Confined to LCD screens
And large comfy couches
We are fearless;
Behind the username and password
Of a social network
Our words are no longer spoken
But formed by a repetitive tapping of our fingers
An act of bravery is now defined as
Sending a risky text
Our mornings and sleep patterns
Depend solely on
‘Good morning/night beautiful’
Carefully handwritten letters turned into careless emails
And break ups are just
A click of a button on Facebook
Trips to the mall became
Hot cocoa and credit card debt
We learned how to surf
With just a keyboard
And our laziness transformed the English language
Into LOL and TTYL
And how silly it is to think
We made ourselves this way.

Should my anticipation run and hide when the air so cold runs dry. My mind is a wonder in this ponder your hand feeds me. Some reason my heart says you're not a least bit overwhelmed, as I set myself up, but this I can't help to rely on free will and dwell. As I relate to the sun spots that reflect the conscious of hell we rebel, I sit back, trying to relax, staring through the tinted lens for time to pass. I reveal through the condensation, the eye of the drafty wind.

My mind wonders as I see the inevitable piercing reason for life bleed through the trees, quickly catch my eye. My heart races mystically to the beat of epilepsy as the hours surpass behind this sun glass. As I get to thinking, you remind me of the constellations breading, metaphorically speaking. The halo is gorgeous as your amber glows the Tuesday moon, bringing in a Wednesday revenge. I listen for a perfect circle to a perfect gratitude of the lust we all share in a wanted haunting spiraling into a Fibonacci themed sea.

Your strawberry kiss gathers a thesaurus of mood swings. It's heart carries a stone the size of the moon. Pity from far but a sight to see as the circle of life surrounds the familiar meaning of how much you mean to me. Only somehow, I find myself feeling like a LCD movie scene, Incomplete and all alone or like a childhood never ending story of love. Boring and make believe.

Some days I can't remember, some days I would like to forget. Like when lovers split into million's of pieces, we deal with it. I pirate about as my mates call me out as I blacken into fading out. A cool breeze to cold chill spinal tap heart attack buried deep in my bones like a diamond in the ruff, protected damaged goods. Keep me in mind, my fractal eye, frame this sight, picture it twice, what you see is what you find. (needs work)

Finding myself blind I'm reminded all the time, I'm bloodshot dry trying not to show you why the need to express my feelings. My reasons why are believed lies. With just one look, no second guess. You'll see my regret. You'll see me die a little in sight. The half heart you shared the day I felt it would matter, I felt I would care...

I would reside my life just to keep you near of a grateful insight. Standing in line waiting to see you see my side. I found my peace in between the daisies and the trees. You had fit the dream of being complete embraced me, to let it be. Hesitation aside I would rewind my life just to keep you close by, but the patterns we can't hide from this manifested tide. A rush of love a loss of touch. We reach for the sky but the stars just keep pushing high as we keep stretching our time here, it's all we have, is space.

Fifteen inches LCD
Electronic mouse
And bunch of scratches of sheets.

There were roof lines
Valleys and ridges
Encircling the overlapping layers
Some are frozen, some are hidden.

Estimation and calculation
Uttering numbers
With various actions.

3D walls
Inserting commands
Subtracting openings
Including doors and windows.

The formula was easy
To multiply and subdivide
Real aesthetical features
Future renovation
For firm edification.

(6/30/14 @xirlleelang)

Joanne told me they would be clapped out.
Radio Luxembourg wouldn't play them.
No Glam you see,
frayed collars, Bar room Blues.
But I'm still into Bees make Honey.
Pawned my Zenith Quad-8 for a Seiko LCD Quartz.
Memorised Ashai Pentax's Reason #44. 
Still have the hots for Marisa Berenson's knees.
No censure.

So much to do, my mind is buzzing. My fingers are dancing with perverted excitement as my lips form words with more syllables than letters. I feel as though I were a more capable Atlas. May the world rely on me, I shall hold it higher than an aeroplane as it soars through the sky. Our skies.

A testament to the ingenuity of man the turrets, ******* the weak, and credit God; the asexual ****** he is.

This is no song for the hipsters to play as their ringtones as they feel for each other through their LCD screens. They search for other brazen articles of humanity trapped within their social networks, a web of faces, **** smiles, faces and words with us wherever we we go. An inextricable mass that haunts like schizophrenic vocals droning out the real life. But there is no real life. We are all just like Him.

*****. Not natural. Filthy. Unclean.

Today, I grabbed a handful of sand just to see if I could feel it. Ten years ago, I would have felt every grain as it passed through my fingers; crisp, sharp, invigorating. Now, it’s dull. Blunt, rounded, indistinguishable. *****. Not natural. Filthy. Unclean. Nothing for our worshipped deviant to see.

My life is pornographic; an infographic of my exquisite taste in infectious lies, in the slaughter of old days, in the times immemorial. A map of things that don’t relate to me. A chart of things I don’t care about. I have too much to do, so much to write about! To write about...me.

*****. Not natural. Filthy. Unclean.

My mind is buzzing.

Until the next day, when my bones fall sluggish and my mind thinks plainly of its singular desire: Sleep…*****, sleep...filthy, sleep. But I can’t.

So now...I work. I am alive, alive, alive a lively beat of my heart as blood runs like an inmate from the bars of confinement. From my body: a testament to the ingenuity of *******. My body. Where my heart is beaten.

Beat, beat.

Sleep, sleep.

Fly high.

I went and bought a "Smart" house
in a stylish part of town.
It cost me a cool million
but its features did astound.
I can control the lights and locks
with apps on my smartphone.
I can view cam every room
to make sure no ones home.
The shutters and the blinds will rise
or drop at my command.
I can start the fireplace
while flying from Milan.
The automated kitchen
can prepare a gourmet meal.
and place my grocery order
making sure I get good deals.
In my den a giant wall
is a high res LCD
It shows me sports
and other sorts
of lovely greenery.
You'd think this place is perfect
and you're nearly right of course.
I'd still like to lose the talking scale
that says "Get off, You Horse!"

A friend invite from a former lover is the common cold.
It’s irritating, hard to get rid of.  Try to ignore it.  Don’t.
Hover over her main page.  Bathe in the sick blue light
of LCD.  Cursors open portals to the past, their present.
Approach every aspect of the page like a ghost.  Read
through her interests.  Browse her wall posts.  See how
they change, don’t change, won’t.  Surf aimlessly through
frozen moments.  Find one frame you lurk around in, just
out of focus.  Probably just your right arm or forgotten shoes
that have left a tiny footprint on her digital identity.  Attach
needless significance to it anyway.  Check out the page
of the new person in her life.  Compare said person to self.
(Promise to) never go on the page again.  Respond to request.
She’s a number, placeholder, a ones and zeroes memory.

I suckled my mother's Bluetooth breast
while my father built me a bassinet
of series circuits with high, motherboard
bars.
I've got that artificial baby glow.
But Mom put my ****** on Facebook
at four weeks and I still haven't re-friended
(forgiven) her. My upgrade's in nine months,
but I want my downgrade now
'cause all I get are social invite excuses
from Facebook fuckfaces. We pack
our lives into little boxes that we're
not even allowed to open.
We drink to technology, keep our lazy
eyes on our news feeds, and recycle
ideas like their owners would even
want to see what we've done to them.
We misquote Confucius and credit ourselves
with mangled Robert Frost stanzas.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I think
it's awesome that Pepsi used to be blue."

Reblog, revine,
retweet, FaceTime.
Folding chair fold-out on someone's lawn.
White-out Yeats, Keats, Byron, and Auden,
and write John ******* or Tom Whatever.
We're caught in the chicken wire of an LCD
fruit basket so neat, orderly, and brushed
aluminum. How can people write in Starbucks?
S
   B  
       U  
            X
B  
     S
The cooler's too ******, music's too shy,
and the sugar, no, not just the sugar.
THE PEOPLE are too artificial.
The carpet-suit inlay I'm standing
on has pencil lead, sock lint,
and receipt shred lapel pins.
Even corporations play dress-up.

But what happens when Y2K kicks
in tomorrow?
Lives will be lost even before
the missiles **** us.
And the planes that drop
from the sky won't even come close
to when the bough breaks your little
girl's heart, baby, because your phone
can't raise her anymore, so you have to.

And based on your search history,
tweets, and recorded dreams,
she's better off in the warm
embrace of a hard drive.

The Orb is relying on remnant technology
they effortlessly jettison LCD's
to breach the black hole,
humankoids re-activate their birth circuitry
programmed to emote on Ringoo, Jhon,
yet they have dissipated the rest.
In a parallel universe optic nerves
will ruse carbon copies of George and Paul
and everybody will laugh nervously
at two systems so disproportionate
re-uniting the infinite.

Billowed and pasted, rollicked and wasted,
the night takes hold and Samantha, you remember her,
she's smoking again. This is her last pack though.
Drinks poured. Drinks spilled. Kate and I are talking
like people with scheduled late afternoon love affairs. There's
a car alarm going off in the distance. I love this blouse. Is it new?
No. It looks new. I love your perfume. You aren't wearing any?
Must be a natural—and the first to arrive at the party, Chris and
Evan, they're the first to leave, and we listen intently as one, or maybe both, tumble down the stairs. There should be waivers for second floor
apartment parties. Kate, you deserve so—I know. I know. You've got this light. Jesus. I'm just saying. Is it radiant? Yes, it's radiant. And they're lighting their drinks on fire now in the kitchen, some concoction of amaretto and 151 and a kickback of Coors. The flames reflect in their eyes, their cheeks a soft amber, and most of them are smiling, not sincerely, but when was the last time you could give yourself over completely to joy? There's a siren in the distance. Someone says they're coming for us. I'm going to the bathroom. Do you need help? And there's this ceiling fan with LCD Christmas bulbs strung around the blades. A myriad of claustrophobic yellows and whites and blues. Have you seen that video of the ****** having a baby? And he brings it up on his phone. Someone says, Oh my god I love this song from the bathroom. I hadn't noticed the music before now. Drink this. What is it? You'll see. And Samantha she says she's got to step outside for a second. And someone drops a hookah coal on the beige carpet. There goes the deposit. There's incense. There's a Scentsy. There's Febreeze being sprayed liberally. Can you drive? Can you? Do you want to? You know? I've ate a lot today. The songs keep getting skipped. Parquet Courts, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Chvrches, Miley Cyrus—wait, wait put on some SWIFTY. We're going to fire up in my closet if you want to join. It's a walk-in. Evan's back now. He kicks a mirrorball across the kitchen tile with Chris, who's also back now. Where's Samantha? She's smoking. She shouldn't be alone. You remember last—That won't happen again. I'm just saying. Well, you can stop saying. Sirens again. Closer. We're in the walk-in. Kate tugs on my sleeve. I take a pull off the bronze pinch hitter. Do little circles with my head. ****, she says. What? It all starts fading out, the rush of dark, the rush of light. Someone says trash can. Sirens. I'm just trying to—Shut up. I'm just trying to—Shut up.

Then there are those times you write
Because otherwise the words will tear you up inside
Like supercharged particles
Of steam under pressure
Or uranium reaching critical mass
So you set to the task
Grab pen and paper
Or iPhone and browser
And start uploading your sins onto clean white sheets
Of loose leaf or LCD
As if possessed by some other self
Or non-self
Itself a fountain of diction
A percolation of syntax
Bubbling up and out so as not to **** the messenger
And lines flow
Kia ora koutou katoa
Nga hoa
Me toku whanau
My friends
And family
Be well
See well through this life
And her pitfalls
Tall walls and
Crash courses in experience
Standard variance and deviation from the mean
She can be mean
She can be cruel and unkind sometimes
But you’ll find rhymes to make lines line up like signs on the highway
And find even in grief there is beauty
Truth in pain
Life in suffering
There is no judgement inherent in these things and none at all other than that which we place upon them
Negative or positive are uniquely human conditions
Everything else just is
It sits within itself
Without apprehension of the fourth dimension
Not beating up younger selves for poor decisions made by poorly equipped versions
Nor fearing an abstract time hence
From whence march our fears about death
And a life well spent
And incontinence
And I think my phone bill is going to be massive
And I think my 2 minutes is up
And I think my 15 minutes is up
Where was I again?
Words have surfaced
Simmered and settled down
Beauty in the badness
Truth in the madness
Tiredness overtakes
Like post coitus
An **** of the monastic order
Intellectual intercourses subsequent exhaustion
And sleep calls ceaselessly
As if nothing else mattress

Your name never fails to appear.
On little LCD screens. On the back
of my eyelids where I trace the letters
as if they belonged to me.

My heart claws its way up my throat
like the way I claw at my scalp.
My face. My hair. Everytime
my phone lights up,
your name never fails to appear.

The conspiracy's got holes, water coming in, and
everything you say on the burner, they're going
to use against you in a court of law or as
a bargaining chip to go a level or two up,
but if you get caught, who can you give up?
Whose real name do you know? You feel
it all closing in. The black sedan whose
make and model you can never peg
is always parked off to the side.
Some days it rains, and you
try to remind yourself
to cherish this. You've
killed one man, been
asked to **** two more.
The sun sets uptown and
the jewelry stores close
and the bars open,
the ones with oak tables
and longbeards serving drinks,
the ones where they look at
you funny when you pay
in cash, the ones where
the women talk loudly
about their shapes
being real, about beauty
and food and thigh gaps,
their world entire.
What a funny set of problems,
you think to yourself as
the third beer hits your head
just right and headlights
come in through the window.
You walk out the back through the kitchen
into the neighborhood with
bikes left in the street. Two, three porch lights
on. Watchers east. Watchers west.
You break your phone on the hood of a stranger's car.
You run for the first time in months.
You run past the coffee shop and the frozen yogurt shop
and the artisan haircut shop and the tattoo shop with fair trade
ink. You find yourself at your sister's on 23rd. You tie off
in the living room while your nephew yells at the
Xbox and the LCD. It's curtains. Uneven.
The warmth and softness of synthetic women swirl around
you. There's a word for this. Maybe two. You swear when
you wake you will be hunter. No more defender. No more
user. Hunter King. Dark Secret on the Wind.

Eyes glued to an LCD screen

"Oh my god!"
You say,

"What a tragedy!"

*******,

Because the only tragedy here,
Is those clumsy, arrogant words
Toppling,
Like vomited dollar coins,
Out of your face.

I live vicariously
through anonymity.

The convex mirror
LCD flat-screen
deflates apprehension and
balloons confidence

I jump feet first
through the looking
glass slipper; which
will turn to pumpkin
just before dawn.

I am not Cinderella.

I am just another
Guy Fawkes impersonator
with “V” tattooed
on my heart-strings.

Just another harbinger
like the Plutonian bird
perched upon a pallid bust

sent to whisper:
“nevermore”

My eyes are strained against an LCD,
my fingers mindlessly tapping away.

                                                          ­        [My eyes are on the road,]
                                                          ­        [my fingers intertwined with yours.]

I look up at the clock,
the entire day is behind me now.

                                                           ­       [I look up at my rearview,]
                                                      ­            [the entire city is behind me now]

I lean back in my office seat
and let out a sigh of exasperation.

                                                  ­                [I lean back in the driver's seat]
                                                           ­       [and let out a sigh of content]

The droning sound of the printer
drags with my monotonous heart.

                                                         ­         [The melodic sound of your laughter]
                                                       ­           [lifts my symphonic heart]

I work until the sun drops

                                                               ­   [We drive until the sun rises]

                                                  and then
We drive.
                                                          ­        [I work.]

I broke the LCD of his laptop,
and he's putting all the blame on me.
I just sit on his bed,
but I don't know, that bag of his
has a laptop.
Yes I admit, 'cause there's no one
to be blamed.
Yet he's also careless to just leave
his things anywhere.
But where can I find a money
to pay Php 8,000.00?
I don't hava any job yet,
and I'm afraid to tell my parents.
Maybe I will just pay Php 5,000.00
but hoooow?
I don't know, I don't have that money,
if only I am rich. **sigh

Ye lives are on the line,
our lives are now online.

The old LSD,
Spelled backwards as DSL,
Can  now be seen in an LCD,
we are now pluged in a flat screen T.V.

Oh life!
****** and on the level,
and now we must rebel.

a thousand eyes follow you from newly waxed floors
and trail after me with form-filled labels, white on gold
take as needed; do not operate machinery; relax.
the shadows follow our steps, ***** and blood next to God’s poster love.
pin it to the bathroom wall: peccavi, peccavi

two years, fifteen minutes, miles of scars.
we sleep through the days, and whisper
of nights before the hurricane

("what happened to those two?")
                                                     ("Deus misereatur, the storm took them.")

I daydream of sinking my teeth into the flesh of redemption,
to rip muscle from immaculate bone.
can we not move on?
copper denial drips from our jaws.

and Deo gratias, they say, you survived.
limbless and naked on tiled floors.
Deo gratias et Deus mortuus est.
survival is in our veins.

I watch you waiting in LCD purgatory
as you see my fingers bleed into the vinyl shielded couches of the 12am ER

perception through observation — I let you reveal who I am.
what am I feeling? how do I act?
breathing through each other with liquor in our lungs.
I know how the bile tastes in your throat,
and you know the burn of the whiskey on my tongue

why do we still reach for walls
where cicada-shell notices cling with scotch tape?
take a number and restore the riches;
leave the room and tear them down.

who but God can build over the ruins of fallen cities, fallen worlds?
and ora pro nobis, He is yet unwelcome here.


we are holy, in our own names we pray, and Hallelujah, we are saved

A sala inerte é o meu reino:
Quente, estranho
Num cheiro de fel e sêmen que desidrata todo alvéolo ******>
E Eu sou o diabo:
Frio, habitual
Condenado à prisão da luxúria, da lombeira

Espasmado engasgo-me no meu retrato de LCD
Nos botões do controle remoto
Nos meus olhos que coçam, pois não vejo

E como se só, já não bastasse o inferno
Os anjos com metralhadoras eretas
Vêm consumar o meu desleixe

Pois como mago que sou
Desarmo-os com meu falo movido a pilha
E rio-me de tristeza, pois era a guerra que eu ansiava

Rendidos, entram pela porta dos fundos
Trêmulos, sentam-se ao meu lado no sofá
E carnudos, macios e úmidos e corruptos se convertem

Porque Eu quero.

html, body {
width: 100% !important;

/Detaching and relatching,
ever-shifting retinas
* singe the .7mm LCD,
* tattooing their reflection
* onto a surface of light.

Transfixing and addicting
* but cold, barren, and void.

Push ourselves inward,
* never mine the diamonds or the coal./
background: transparent !important;

/This inane information tundra;
* atmosphere of global consciousness;
* comforting blanket of the uncanny.

Sedated meditation works
* towards rattled harmony./
float: connected nirvana.

/Plug-in, shoot-up
* Log-on, nod-off*/

display: none !important;

}

Our love grew through parallel circuits and electric currents,
data entries in microprocessors,
and copper and silver wires.
Who says love has to be a series of
physical advances,
but instead
a product of the neurons in your brain.
We can get high off of love,
dive into dopamine induced comas
as we listen to the static over each other's microphones.
We'll dream about growing old together
laugh at our younger selves
and how many times we had to
confess our love for one another
before hanging up the phone.
Then I wake up and realize
maybe I was never meant to
see the stars in your eyes
or bask in the light of your presence
but wallow in the glow of an LCD screen.
Countless nights and early mornings
spent in 320p.

In a place where the Saints go
To eternally lift their load
My own Saint had a ticket
For his own road

2:37 sharp
That Saturday afternoon
God made a plan
For you to leave soon

Bedside is where I'll be
Waiting for the moment you flee
Don't fly away my heavenly friend
Promise me you'll see me again?

I once heard a story
Where "Love is watching someone die"
Do you remember the moral?
Waiting for the fateful goodbye?

Plans put on hold
We had quite a few
How long to wait?
I don't know about you...

Bedside is where I'll be
Waiting for the moment you flee
Don't fly away yet my heavenly friend
Promise me you'll love me again?

Whatever god there is hasn't given me enough time
To be satisfied with all of our lustful crimes
But as the LCD tells me you're drifting away
Your second date will be for today

Don't go away
Tell me how you fight fight fight

Bedside is where I was
Dreading that awful moment it paused
I watched you fly away, my heavenly lover
You promised me, that we'd wait for each other

But your promises were as broken as you

as  I walked in white
in the gilded summer night

foot steps following
one heel, one heel
down the street
downtrodden
floating
detached
lost

a call came from
a wind maker on the street
a stirrer of emotions
a sorcerer whose only game
was that of creation

I watched the draw and pull
of the strangers into his
gravitational field

tendrils of invisible allure
wrapping around shoulders
ankles of passersby
as they froze
captivated by his moth-and-spider web
of alien, archaic sound.

in the aftermath
of my escape
from his forcefield

I sat on a bench
carefully attempting
to tuck the edges of my
being back
inside my body

so to join
the rest of the anonymous
collective fleeing
from  the ancient
difficult feelings
he had stirred
from the greater
universal melting ***

no longer recognized
in this
Cold Age of Chrome and LCD screens.