Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill

Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.

i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when we talked about going to seattle?
you said you liked the rain
and the fact that no one there would know you,
i just wanted to be wherever you were.
i was never afraid of the dark
when you talked about yours.
i still don't have words for what i felt
when you told me the only other number
you had saved in your phone apart from your mother's was mine.
i keep telling myself you're not allowed
to just exit and re-enter my life as you please,
but i leave the door unlocked,
so what does that make me?
the last "i love you" from the last time we spoke,
is still stuck to the roof of my mouth.
other lovers have tried to pry it out of me,
but the memory of you is like lockjaw.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember the lizard you caught last summer?
you let me name him forrest.
if life is a box of chocolates,
there are pieces missing,
and whatever is left has gone stale.
i can't smoke cigarettes in my backyard anymore
without wondering where you are
or if you're smoking too.
i hope you're not drinking,
i know you hate what it does to you.
your secrets are still tucked between my ribs,
i will hold them safe and repeat them back to you
if you ever lose your way home.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when you told me
about the person you were afraid of becoming,
i said i wasn't scared,
and i told you i was proud of you?
i'm still proud of you.
i hope you're in school or at least keeping busy.
i hope you still make yourself laugh.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember what movie we were watching
the night you got arrested?
i still can't finish it.
i am holding the place.
can we pick up where we left off?
can we stand up and wipe the dust off?
i never got to tell you why i only write in pen,
or why i can't sleep with socks on,
or about the day i caught god with his hands in a public fountain
fishing for change.
i'm not mad at you for disappearing, but i'm lonely.
the only reason i haven't called
is because i'm afraid of being sent straight to voicemail,
but if i ever find myself in indiana again,
you'll be the first to know.

- m.f.

Have you ever gotten lockjaw?
At least, that's what I think it is
when my mouth stretches
to let in a yawn, or out a sigh.
My tongue recedes
for the muscles underneath pull taut.
It hurts to keep open,
and it hurts to try and close.
I cannot speak
yet I cannot seem to keep silent.
But this is only for a moment,
one that I long for,
as silly as that sounds.

It reminds me of talking to you

Let's go with two exclamation points

Rip the air from my lungs
Shriveled and lonely and pink inside
The flesh dancing the salsa for a breath

Atrophied arms reaching out
Locked like my mouth

(Screaming for a kind word)

I have never been without it
The scent of regret surrounds me
Every mistake I ever made
Is the stench that so confounds me

Soaring heights of anxiety
I have never been without it
Not your garden variety
Plaguing much of society

How I long to be free of it
Unrelenting regret believed
I have never been without it
Dry heaving nightmares unrelieved

Trichinosis, lockjaw strangles
My regret knows all about it
Like Joe Btfsplk’s* cloud dangles
I have never been without it

i am being aimlessly guided by a decrepit side street.
the smell of who-knows-what hangs in the still like an occupied noose
as i strain to ignore the unpleasant moisture on my brow,
the imperceptible perspiration of emotional exertion.

my heels can decipher the coded cracks in the concrete
and converse with muffled clackings that echo from alleyway walls.
they say, "our coordinates are flawless; this is the path to freedom."
i think, to reach it alone would be more bitter than any confinement.

‘cause i left some love in an empty room miles from here—
it’s collecting cobwebs instead of affections
while the idol of unrequited passion burns
and its ashes are faxed to four far corners of a hardhearted world.

i reach a dead end and feel the breath catch in my throat.
there is nothing here but the empty cocoons of the homeless
who have hopefully lifted themselves on dusty wings to a better place
leaving me searching for signs of life in the litter they've left behind.

there is a poster haphazardly taped to the bricks;
no lettering, no information, just the face of a man.
he stares blankly at me from his paper veranda
as if i were a television set, some mundane form of entertainment.

then, unexpectedly, a hole rips through the flyer
to compensate for the boot-clad leg freeing itself from dried pulp
and stepping heavily onto the pavement below.
i stumble back in mixed horror and disbelief as appendages creep lividly from the wall

until the man with the advertised face stands before me.
he pulls a pack of parliaments from his trenchcoat pocket
and wordlessly offers me one as his lighter births infant flame.
soon, the nicotine fog hangs like an opaque grey curtain between us.

then the silence is shattered, with shards of stillness breaking against the asphalt.
"i hope you weren't attempting to be stealthy. i could hear you for miles."
the voice emitted is raspy, the sound of a dull razorblade on the neck of a convict.
i shiver fiercely in response with a zero-kelvin cold.

a frankenstein hand fights through the smoke to grasp my ashen face.
his finger to my lips is a canker sore forming.
"a pretty lil' thing like you shouldn't be caught dead in this mess."
his forked tongue forms the words of nothing i don't already know.

i push him away. "just cut to the chase. we don't need to drag this out.
you know what i came here for, so let's get it over with."
my heart spasms in protest, but i suppress it with clenched fists.
as it dejectedly thuds in my chest, i can taste the bile rising in my throat.

he raises an eyebrow, then sniggers, showing off a yellow shark-toothed grin.
"the princess has a temper! well, you've come a long way for this, sweet cheeks."
he reaches into his coat, pulls out his leather gauntlets blackened with singe.
"say exactly what you need, doll, and your old pal lucifer will handle the rest."

my lungs deflate, punctured by pins and needles of stale air
and the blood dries in my veins like cruel sun blistering the desert.
half of me begs for lockjaw. the other half manipulates the corners of my mouth.
"erase him from my mind. i can't spend my life obsessing."

a glint of guilty pleasure in the devil's red eye seals the deal.
soul extraction's just like getting a tooth pulled, i tell myself regretfully.
it's just another part you don't need, a bland and disposable item.
but it doesn't quell the fear; i'm shaking hard enough to register on a richter scale.

the man in black embraces me, grasping my ribcage in his massive gloved hands.
a flash of doubt sears through me, yet i stand frozen, crucified.
i feel satan's minions pulling at memories like loose strings
and there is chanting in my ears; evolnilr igafognir effuseht eta ivellai sihth tiw.



i come to with dry heaves and a migraine sent from hell itself
to find that i am home in bed with the sheets around my ankles.
i rise and move to the mirror, see the dark circles traced around my eyes,
and dissolve into sobs without knowing why.

remember when you told me sleep was just practice? remember how when i asked what for, all you could manage was sea-foaming at the mouth and tired eyes?

funny how i see in black and white now. funny how i can still see sea-foam-blue.

one of the many things you taught me was to always keep eulogies tucked between my ribs in hopes of memorizing them by heart. i never knew heart break until words i can't remember writing—or, maybe, wont remember writing came spilling out of my mouth like reverse lockjaw.

but i remember the way you choked up and coughed out apologies as if you were fighting tides of pride; words getting caught in your throat—a foreshadowing of salt the water in your lungs.

i know i tend to ramble, and i know you tend to hate that but i swear god this had a point. i guess what i'm trying to say is, i never meant to be your anchor. i never wanted to drag you down.

Falling hard for someone I hardly know
I think of him and then my heart clenches
The way I feel for him , I want to show
But when I'm close, I stop within inches

I don't want to hold it in much longer
If I do I'll explode from head to toe
Maybe I'll say something to be stronger
It's not as if he'll hate me, be a foe

I step closer to him, voice calling out
My mouth snaps shut, my legs frozen in place
I have lockjaw, what is this all about
I can't step closer, my heart starts to race

I will wait for him to step toward me
What if he won't come, then we'll never be

Broke as hell
Blue light eyes
Pity be pity see
Pushing till they pull
Color coded notes on fire
Scholar of all that is okayish
Handicapped lockjaw zombie
Swimmers in the styrian river of Dante’s Inferno
A stop sign growing in the middle of the street
Thousand yard letter grade stare
12 missed assignments
Experienced Naivete
Dementia in progress
Last year’s Amnesia
Crossing busy streets
Vegetative

a pink spit shine in your suprasternal notch,
split lip stamping your skin with red,
lipstick kissmarks or ****** scabs. this is how it goes,
this is how you learn to spell your name,
letters to fill your mouth. rituals leave stains on your sheets.
you washed them in the river and the fish all rose to meet you, belly-up.
you eating porcelain, ignoring your bleeding gums, stronger than a doll. id rather be scared than lonely you said
as if they were mutually exclusive,
as if it was a choice. pressing your fingers in the saviors wounds cause you dont believe in holy
but you believe in gore. scales like stars littered in the grass.
you in the streets screaming HIT ME at indifferent cars,
begging dead wolves to eat you too, one last meal, one last **** before you go,
one more sin cant **** you too much, right? right?
death like a bloodletting, draining a wound.
at the riverside you sort the viscera from the flesh,
leave the eyes for birds. fill your hollows with something warm,
something liquid and soft,
for a moment you feel whole - until it leaks in rivulets,
soaking your skin, you felt whole.
bring me the head of god,
big enough to build a home inside, bring me the heart of god,
big enough to feed a kingdom.
your head is full of meat, raw and red, juices dripping from the ears,
your head is so, so, full, so full, bring me the liver of god,
clogged with human sin, bring me a poison that could **** the stars.
he brought them down, dragged them from the sky to bless the world, bright like angels,
purity burns. bleach in your fresh-pierced hands.  you were warding off lockjaw,
killing the flesh.my limbs are not mine,
corpse parts,
scars as seams at the joining-place. you say my hands hurt,
you say i feel like my knuckles are splitting, you say can we stop?
you do this every time. keep digging. i feel deathly. i feel deadly.
your feet in soft dirt as the shovel hits wood. i know what you know. i know what you know. i know your name and i know the soft spots on your skull. i know the breakline on your rib, the place where it's almost healed. knowledge of your ****** parts,
the soft parts where the teeth go in. im ready to die,
im waiting to die, put your tongue in my mouth and ill bite it off. put your hand in mine and ill break your wrist.

A hole for the whole;
Clarion lacuna.
The cheval glass so immaculate, coeval.
You will find yourself when you sever the sound.
But even some trees reach for the ground.
Inadequate, a voluntarily tethered thrall.
Catatonic canvas;
Goblin shark lockjaw.

The rapid Pulses increase as  air finally fuels the fire
It came to combust. to spark the flint to the fullest
To centralize all that could be, a widespread social desire
forgoing logic in the name of being
the shattering of illusion is, you guessed it, a figment fractured formally from the rock
obsidian reflecting afterimages.  motions of forced feigned reaction
a wordless line of thought, speechless in it's pure refracted intent.
to beam these ideas to that manifestation, not to dance around fumbling a thesaurus
admiration follows the music and turns the dial accordingly.  ******* scenesters
it humbles to and fro, perpetually ignoring the perfect fine tune
If being is becoming, then what was it?
I could say the words, whisper into lulls, look down the full extent of the great Y in the sky
Would the divine feminine find it's way down those dark channels and see before the divide?
and become the she that should be with me
Am I the He that should be with She?
These concepts sometimes seem a superstitious pogrom, only in place for the sake of continuity
THE HUBRIS!!!!
geese Louise, If only we had counters for practically meaningless revelations and a tic-tac for each one.
Man-Oh-Man, would my breath be too fresh for primetime.
The loaves rise as the yeast fornicate in the manner of Hottentots
gotta butter that bread, son
Too many fuzzies are broken by too many Lennys
too many sparks are extinguished in the name of normality
Too many mountains erode to grains of sand in the name of eventuality
but now they're stoically perfected and ready to be shaped into castles
so much of creation is for destruction, forcing impermanence so repeat customers can sully their honey
words...um... sentences.. and. thaaattt. oh yeah, cognitive thought
People should not fear conversations.  No premise nor opinion should be overlooked due to emotions
You can't fake Lockjaw,  I know you're just chewing that sugar daddy to buy some time
Look not to the answers you find, but to the questions you ask.  The real truth is there.
yeah, It's kinda the inverse of the norm and it usually feels weird when you feed your ***
But it's nowhere near as painful as the **** that comes out your mouth sometimes
I'm scared too
And this stupid Scar on my knee!! AAAAHHH!!! never ever ever take your knees for granted!!
Smile when you see a friend
Smile when you see a frown
Frown when you're upside down
But try not too rhyme too much, it's corny
I write for those I've admired, in the name of the will to create
something far beyond the corporeal, adjacent to the surreal... I mean alabama
stop yourself when you inch to a serious concluding gorge
You know, my father was a bridgemaker, *****
You can't solve all your problems with fire.  I'd like to think that Prometheus said that before lending us his lighter
hmmm. this Zippo's almost out of fluid... pif whatever, we can just monkeyfuck each other until someone figures out a better way
Laugh and don't get too taken up by the rhythm.  Don't polish your stones, no one else can see your pretty face in them anyway.
A persons ease of words on the fly can sometimes be related to their ease of telling lies.
Where's all this coming from?
I'm not sure, but I hope it finds who it's going to.

1st Verse/16 Bars
I'm trying to earn more pennies to mark me a moment in life,
A moment in time, I should probably drop this razor sharp knife,
I need to Push forward through this crowd of confusion,
But your in delusion with these rhymes that I'm using and abusing
Cos I'm confusing, consuming, choosing and amusing myself,
refusing so I'm producing more tracks for consuming and wealth,
Snapping your neck at every single beat, whilst you're tapping your feet,
So all  sit back with some popcorn you're in for a much needed treat,
I ponder and wander in my mind sometimes as I see painted pictures,
when I paint I find a story or a rhyme using these triggers,
Whilst I play with words that take years to carve and curve,
something harder to learn and yearn into something much more worth,
More to you than me so my life had, meaning from my birth,
Ripping up turf, trying to find words beneath the core of earth,
So I rap in metaphoric tongue because I'm using poetic justice,
you're frowned from above whilst you try master and craft this.

(Chorus 1)
In order to survive,
Do all you can in life,
Make yourself feel alive,
In order to survive.

(2nd Verse/14 bars)
I use a form of speech that frees the soul to reach your own goal,
so you won't be buried inside you'll confide in deep parts using coal,
to set fire to bars you spit, ripping and fitting every single hole,
Whilst I rap I'm reforming and morphing them into some sort of mold,
Because while I'm hitting, n knitting bars like threads and then sowing,
the lawn whilst I'm mowing n showing people I'm always growing,
in capacity and trying to shove off some of the animosity,
the world's in atrocity whilst I'm producing I feel it subconsciously,
As we would say in Great Britain would you like a cup of Rosie Lee
and then In France they say no musketeers without the three,
but I found me as I perfect and refine every single line,
lyrics so evil I'll be committing a grade A crime,
in time for these dimes to drop without single a fine,
Lyrics so sour you may as well **** a lime.

(Chorus 2)
In order to survive,
Do all you can in life,
Make yourself feel alive,
Find a future or wife,

(3rd Verse/14bars)
I can rap like I'm insane but other rappers are plain,
No strawberry or chocolate just vanilla milkshake,
I dream of crowds shouting my name not in vain,
Because within this ink I'm pouring my soul through pain,
Razor, scissors and chainsaws will cut you all the same,
Like these lines that will cut you up whilst I'm in the game,
i hope you realise but this whole rap is one big metaphor,
A rise to the fame and all the glory comes with downpour,
Crying so hard he might flood the whole ground floor,
Biting so hard into the rap hes got lockjaw,
I hope my next song will be featuring someone who killed a
situation to diffuse the rhyme from the bigger picture,
I'm Slitting my veins to bleed and produce on this page,
trying to push and pull salary above the minimum wage.

(Chorus 1x2)

Tear it to shreds little man,
This is all you have left to do.
All other empathic direction taken and blinded like lockjaw,
taken and railed into The rusted side of a wall radiator.
Of course the floors creek,
Of course the walls tear up like paper
Nerves, exploding,to the eye to eye feeling,
The missing aperture,
Four tracks laid down have grown into nails by a stretch of ability;
And a second sun in glasses to tie it all up in.
If you couldn't breathe you would flail around just the same way.
Degrade truth
as all hope-full people should do.

He enters. A stiff morning jowl
can be heard clicking.
And, in early grievance,
the second man’s clock speeds its ticking.
He lies lulling himself (lamenting)
while lockjaw bends down,
knees cracking.
Behind the fold that blinds the floored man
a “D” engrained from cigarette ads,
After smell of the first’s wafts over.
An emphysemic growl is left ringing
on the ground; tumultuous hacking
kicks in like the cops that reside down in Brixton.  
Wheeze, hack, and cough, and cough. And cough.
(Silence) bearing down from the **** erectus
leads Remington to the Clark of the floored man’s
pounding chest.
Rest, rest; he tries to protest, but the cavalry
can’t hear his signs of duress.
And now slitting wrists, from inside the veins;
the invisible smoker never could be restrained.

his molars
grind my bones,
but it reminds him
to release his jaw
and let air seep in.
so i guess i don’t mind,
at least he stays alive.

The band
Of
Runaways
Ran
To new land
New clan
The Rebels
Sought refuge
Grew
Fought
A standoff
Against power
Whose
Afraid
Of a grenade
From a renegade
With nothing
To lose?

An outnumbered
Underdog
Already abused
Walks
Into the pit
Locked in
Pitted
Against a pit
With a lockjaw
That bit
And held
With the grip
Of the law
The loser
Still wins
Though
A life lost
The price costs
Hope
Spreads
Like the words
Of a martyr
Read in red

Here’s a toast
To the living dead
Anyone
That gave their life
In a fight
That couldn’t be won
Stood
Against the giants
And tyrants
Of the era
Erased terror
With blood shed
And a carved
Signature
That signifies
The nature
Of a man
With true power

Wife
Kids
a pug named Lockjaw

dying of young age, your brother nurses at the breast of the stage hand’s version of a mother.  the stage hand is off arguing with a lamp on the impossibility of attracting moths.  beside a tall cake, a groom with lockjaw and a stiff neck has to take life’s high point on faith.  if you remember, brother made for the groom a bible so light it could be held by a cobweb.  and then it was.

Lockjaw and gaze into a vastness that even I can't comprehend
I can't speak
It's like I always spawn an idea that sends me spiraling into chaos
But somehow that forever seems so empty
When the space between your eyes when I stare at your face becomes my safe place
I'm hiding inside my own skin the way it stretches around flesh to hold in every **** thought I've ever concealed from you
I wrote you an apology letter when you ravaged my soul and I think I truly believed that sincerity would save you
Now all I have is a notepad with your name etched between every line and sore hands and tired eyes
Some things won't ever change

from ~The Blood You Don’t See Is Fake~ selected poems (September 2013)

[multitudes]

oh, here they are.  the interested persons we will find later.  for now, this field.  my gestural father holding a broom for what he calls the welcome mat of exodus.  if my mother is watching it is because she long ago dropped birds from a single passenger plane.  if instead she is privately seen by god, then the whole bird thing was a bit of a stretch.  in memory alone I am alone.

[another ****]

in such times, it is constantly 2am.  a friend pulls carefully at your ear.  a friend’s thumb is a hologram of a thumb.  you are being told that what you’re about to be told is highly confidential.  because it’s dark, and because your bed is the prize winning bed of a formerly dethroned insomniac, you are nothing if not empowered to listen.  your friend’s tongue redacts the parts of your body that have been marked.  this is done in secret.  what you’re hearing right now was scored some time ago.  when things were the same.      

[word of the devil’s death]

     my mother and father cower under the kitchen table and my brothers are dead.  my father has clammed up since asking me to tell him something he can take to his grave.  this last week I’ve mastered placing my ear on the table in such a way I hear what I am supposed to do.  impossible things that are no longer terrible.  dispatches from a simpler region.  for example, hack your roommate’s youtube account.  also, poison the non-pregnant.  my baby sister laughs with me when I say some of these aloud.  she believes the table is possessed by the devil’s ghost.  her beliefs are clear and specific.  the ghost thinks itself the actual devil, and will need a good amount of therapy.                    

[men statuesque]

I am struck by the urge to pray.

my trauma has yet to occur.

the stress my father knows

knew his hands
as he waved them in front of nothing
on a tarmac obscured by speech.

night is a ruined crow.

I see the city as possibly bombed.

[steganography]

every day is a scar’s birthday.  this is how I am able to start most of your sentences.  I praise your god, you worry, and worry keeps him from finding out.  on the day you started talking the rooms were horrified.  the termites fled your blood.  a cold stone appeared outside beside a stick.  the home’s most loved dog died without spatial awareness.  your mother began to compose a series of poems by Franz Wright.  for inspiration she put her hands in the dog and in doing so dropped a sack of black groceries.  a thing that changed over time rolled into your father’s mouth.


[the wave]

we let the phone ring out because it keeps the babies quiet.  we have this dance we do to straighten side leaning semi-trailer trucks.  the sports we play require that one’s sickness occur only when it’s run through the others.  we limp beside any creature that limps.  the great romance of a complete thought is something our parents plan to leave each other.  our father is two mathematicians who argue.  our mother says her feet feel as if they’re still in prison for what she’ll take to her grave.  our guesses mean little because they are facts.  at school we are voted on and kissable.  if you see us coming, *** is a small unplugged television on top of a small casket.  details belong to god.      

[fixture]

dying of young age, your brother nurses at the breast of the stage hand’s version of a mother.  the stage hand is off arguing with a lamp on the impossibility of attracting moths.  beside a tall cake, a groom with lockjaw and a stiff neck has to take life’s high point on faith.  if you remember, brother made for the groom a bible so light it could be held by a cobweb.  and then it was.      

~~~~~~~~~~

from ~father, footrace, fistfight~ selected poems (June 2014)

[future stabbings]

you take photos of men and women who aren’t all there. you post the photos while your dog barks. you doze on a hot day. your mom calls to tell you about the spider in her eye and while she talks you look for your dog. your mom thinks you sound desperate though you’ve said nothing. you go outside and see your dog in the backseat of a parked car. the car is not yours. your mom has the hiccups and says the first part of goodbye.

[dog years]

the longer
I grieve

the more

[crystal]

a foster boy using an alias teaches my son to shoot.

it’s the tooth fairy on a sad day finds
under my pillow
a handgun.

you know your father
is a night owl.

[mendicant]

this doorbell
is for the inside
of your house

-

to some
you’re the giant
you’re not

-

hearing isn’t for everyone  

-

a fog-softened man
with a baby
might experience
a sense
of boat
loss…

-

hurt

what you know

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from ~Eating the Animal Back to Life~ full length poetry collection (July 2015)

[uppers]

god gets ******-up about which hair to harm on your head. in some, this goes on for years. I have a lucky razor, a father who’s blind in one hand, and a suicidal thought that scares me to death in front of cops. my last meal came to me on a toothbrush.

[themes for orphan]

you will never be
a virus

-

the animal’s moment of bliss
before it is named

-

*******
as the seizure
had
by hologram

-

the cyclone
that makes a baby
you can’t
put down


[accession]

starvation
is the invisible
cannibal’s
birthmark.

water
is nothing’s
blood.

September 29th 2022 Philosophy

The spavined strumpets of aleatory nimonics stranded in the dimpled pelargic mythos of the nebelwerfers of scansorial elitism burroling the stokehold of pragmatic lurch useful for the progeny of powellisation interned by potichomania for balefires against the throbbing thremmatology of the strickle of jabirus vexed by stunsail argumentation of sumpter sidelong in oblique ginglymus to such a grave extent the thalwegs of contemplation daver in marauded orbit around ceraceous and cespitous thaumaturgy manacled by subservience in sequacious filagersion honing upon stereopsis for nomenclators of high squarson brigadoon fidelity to finessed wheals brackling away at tattermedalion squalor in squirmish facade of brockfaced brockens of wasserman to infiltrate against banjolins the pedigree of berceuse mendaciloquence that the branchiform sedigitation of all sesquiplicated sondage in the barnstorm of whelky during the subterfuge of wallfish cofferdams entrenched in boskets of the deepest regard of bathmism that we might fetch the canicular and cannular talents of susceptible bonhomie to retrace the elemental supralunar chrysopoetics of the transubstantiation of all stellions beyond provincial jansky and above fracklings of disrepute to array never a protervity of loimic stiction but always a sovenance of the highest fidelity to bellarmine briquets that can be sustained by mediagenic diffusion of volplanes of vulpecular vasotribes thereby careworn of future plight by preterition and chronobiology superfused for sporrans calculated for bonanza rather than retching with carpology. In the sustainable calculus of stanhopes and standpipes against the nivellated carnage of many a nivial hotspot grandiose with bruxomania rarely plodged by the subsultus of virgation nor flummoxed into glochidate barbs against the cephaligation of turmoil subduplicated by the gnomics of rebarbative betise flagrant upon caballine taunts of persiflage of percocted vexililogy curmudgeons of companionway spurtle upon cibophobias yearning for yeeps trouncing yaffs in a suitable mascon that trounces the pentapolis for its misfire of finicky stoichometry gradate in the traipse of ginglymus rotated succinctly by a minor machinule degradation of venostastis that the wens of wanchancy never vex or vitiate the providence of prattle of umbrageous stultification whelkied by the patriolatry of foreign observers of the brocade of balbriggan springhares reticulated by grimgribbers of jaunty jabberwocky levying murage with murengers against the trident spodium of overwrought negotiosity spinescent in capacity to deturpate never with a carnassial intent the tribuloid fictions vaccimulgent by reedbucks who learn from stockinette harbingers the calculus of specular redintegration and redhibition that fewer in number are those scollardical taunts of poststructuralism and many more rancorous attempts at chrematistic nurture above camouflets of the vees of vecordy singulting melancholy upon the canzone of cadrans mobilized by motile wafture into cavernous applause that we might witness the secundine generation waft rather than wamble through its throes of goatish goliardy deposed by gonfaloniers of stridor rather than brackle over truculent developments of the lurch of wainage and wantage burroling the constative prisoptometers of tritanopia leveraged by finifugal finesse of stricklers of sifflation that the saffron glow of refulgence is contingent upon the biotaxy and biocenosis of evolved human trust in the stirpiculture of many fascinated disciplines into a chaptalized chapbook of enlightenment above the murky morass of snallygasters of casemate. With an improvident regisseur domineering by the labile fears of neuropynology that understates the mainlined efforts of the nervure against the nesh nessberries of overindulgent popinjays straggling through the stench of sprag winzing in fumatoriums of maieutic latency bored by the tedium of the laveers of the propriety of neolagnium restive because of plumeopicean nidor frowning upon the badigeon of baedekers becoming centripetal to all harmonized gambados seeking the same terminus against the vexatious simultagnosia of the graft between crevices of paltripolitan wrox and the bailivated society we govern better by the rhombos of rhizogenic answers to papaverous problems of chaetophorous vengeance wagered by the groundlings of kyphosis in their idiosyncratic bascules of stentorian elocution that the taxidermy of selenodesic traipses through barnstorms of plurrennial wastelots of cachalots suborned only by the betise and bezique of portentous diestrus fledgling in its inadequacies of torment to roodge any subservience to carpology or any allegiance to the miscegenation of the political yaffingales of plemyrameters overcapacitated by misyoked fears meeting inclement rhigosis that the fortunes of cimelia rather than the boggarts of cimex might enchant future generations to supplant history with a calculated cecutiency that never avoids the boygs of boskets carping by cymaphens of the semaphores of all wheelhouses of wheaten inventions that we might witness the historicity never of sesquiplicated subduplicated biocenosis gorging on the gorgonization of internecine ignorance of varsal velocious cynegetics that the stranded victims of spathspey only in ceremony rather than in supernumerary contemplation that the vigorish vagantes and newels among the badigeons might thrive despite turmoil and the jugodi of broadcloth happenstance devolved upon popular cynography rather than annealed by the ballicatter of avenged samara and samarra that find requital in the wedeln modality rather than nodality of propriety in purpresture rather than crassified demassification of the slore of poltophagous crimogenic procrypsis simileter to all shortsighted gambits of a farsighted batrachian fidelity to nektons suspended among the stunsails of the wager of man to better himself. Because of the motile capacity of thaumaturgy of the wafting baedekers circulated with superfusion incidental to its warped dimensions against thalwegs of strigine configuration that boltropes of emacity swindle from the registry of the coffles of bailivated marivaudage scanscorial in its own moulin capable of entombing the cenote of even the most strident efforts of the nembutsu of gonfaloniers to issue cheer instead of malinger with precipitogenic intimidations of spinescent spiraculated pickelhaubes of porbeagle insights collated from sublime authority because the world awaits not a faineant corpse of morigeration upon the shend of sheol crepitating in heavenly judicature rather than the juggins of notoriety of crambos and crampons that cadge licentiousness that we might all marvel at synechdocial capacities against baryecoia weaponized by a modern bacillicide by blesboks whose candent semaphores of whittled stepneys of swank picaresque by degrees of leverage and largesse taxed by stenometers of pycnostyle elevated because of pyretology that the eventual harbinger of piscary reconnaissance is worth the awaited junctition of all sociogenesis captivated by the selfsame rapture of the chaptalized discovery of a greater biocenosis brockened to rejoice upon decisive conquest rather than backfire in mekometers of coquelicot carnage. The vees of veepstakes admonished by prevenience in vitrail that the fewer casualties of macropicide slangwhanging the brocade of the insular rhotacism of the cannular heist of springald necrologues deposed by cardophagous lies about necrophages so immunized in their stanjant stolinicity boltroped by annealed wheals of endeavor cavorted with portfires of yuzbashi above the petty pedestrian concerns of the spavineds of vauriens of varietism that they can jolt even the jolterheads and surprise with rudenture even the most poikilothermic negotiosities to truckle with a hint of truculence to spare the world from starvelings on the outskirts of spirketti that the scarfskin of the collective endeavors of the ventrad vanguard might resemble the coalition of forbearance for the broadest bronteum of ptarmic awakening ever enjoyed by the vigilance of men and the simity of women against the phallocrats twinged with meritodespotism. When we steeve our way past the mazut of balkanized mazopathia in mercedary wainage rarely taxed by the forefront of  considerate myopia we might celebrate the kalamkari spathspeys in their inordinate caution developed into a nympholepsy splendor of refulgent thrills demassified for the curglaff of generosity upon the crumpled brannigans of wizened applause upon the heyday of saturnalia that the whittawers of willowish repute might barnstorm yet again past the precipice of indecency naively wagered never by the sageships of conciliabule capacity to wheedle their way through their attempts at bacillicide regardant always of the caudles of the past commiseration of privileged cribbles of bathmism rather than repugnant spathodea of retorted pelargic barbarism congealed in oppositive valor to enchant only a regelation of nightjars vigilant in sciatheric darkness that the sondage of siffilated barnstorm might jar the very foundations of heaven and earth that the welkins of those whelking might find the couveuse of attempted blatternophones of past decorum the stridor of many taunted nightmares rather than the precipice of the most copulated acclaim ever registered in the foundries of men above the carcasses of subternatural plebeian mythos that stagnates the world rather than ameliorates it into congenial harmony of concordat against interregnum. The suretyship of so many strictions that the sprahl of sprachgefuhl intermittent with janitrices of stanjant jansky beblubbered by the maudlin sentiments of the many recklings ignorant of stockinette despite the nephroliths against nervifolious demise pregnant with absolution rather than replete with gullywashers of metaplasm in the exposure of ragmatical soteriology jaunty only to elective privilege rather than preserved by the conformed chapbooks of catechumen that our fears incumbent on catastrophism always brackle against the truculence of truckling masses of corpses of infirmity that gimcracks of the pentapolis exalt above the treasury of life itself inviolable. The caverniloquys of the jobbernowls of jolterhead infamy regardless of the purpresture of imperious strigrine secrecy embossed upon the pogroms of caudles rarely commiserating with any enchantment of wanchancy brockfaced in its geopolitical fanfire of the portfire of perendination that swashbuckles with the freebooter flarmeys of past coquelicot catalfalque notoriety always a kilmarge to the boondoggles of syndicalism arrayed in satnav ratomorphism that we might storge our present culture with the heyday of glamour intransigent to the chronobiology of preterition always glozing with glottogonic piecemeal dashpots against catastrophism even when done with metaplasm against metapolitics we can fight together with a unified brigade and sodality against the carping objectionable trends of a momentary amnesia so refulgent it overpowers every other inclination that the solfatara of weatherboards of wethers might convene upon the sumter of clochards becoming vagarish rather than prurience becoming simileter to a popular culture ****** of cisvestism upon the scarpetti of crambazzled crampons of senicide rather than the registries of seismotic impetus roundhousing through jobbled configurations of nimonic harbinger to etch themselves indelibly upon the sociogenesis of bellarmine among men and eutrapely among every other facet of attention never too calcimine with calvous calvers that the bolar of our existence depends on the synclastic momentum of the cynegetic valor rather than porlecking insecurities of babirusa of baboonery. The silkaline improvidence of the many boondoggles of lacking stolonicity or a casemate lockjaw jawhole internment of castrametation created by the pourparler of powellisation entombed in the liturgy that laments the past rather than accelerates the amelioration of the future might wilt because of wilding accidia rather than bonzoline acrasia because those people of nevosity that barnstorm against the nivial haunts of the lionized precipitogenic groundprox of naivety derived never from svedberg of swag of gromatic completion that alleviates all wambling grognards of desperation that we might fetch a new epoch superior to the one we have inherited by our callous poikilothermic poivrades of carnage and carnassial deprivations created by stagnant recession rather than optimized reflation because it behooves us all collectively to inseminate the future for the nitids of troilism rather than argue and pander to the bifids of blackmasters nidificating suboptimal steeves of the bobbinet to storge the inoculated beerocracy davering against the best interests of principality rather than the mainline of bayaderes of bargemasters locked into combat with stevedores from other dimensions of cordial conduct and contact that we no longer cower out of polyphiloprogenitive goals or teleonomic insufficiencies but that we brook and embraced age of praxeology above ragtaggers of retchination that the brassage of squamation can supervise into fluency rather than lurch into internecine schmeggegy that remains and always will be the cynosure of schwerpunkt in domestic manifestation of regal impetus above the detritus of defenestration. We should muster an assault against the plodges of kistvaens and the carnassial carnifician yeltings of wights of widgeons that the wicket of campanile shortsightedness might recoil upon its very foundations of ineptitude to become sempervirent in the sashays of surahs contemplated by the magnality of both mahouts and sansculottes to together forge ahead in commonplace articles of enchantment rather than the reliction of ideation in the swamp menaced by vinegaroons rather than elevated by picaroons who thrive even against snallygasters of importunate jawholes that crave a schoenabatic portfire to distract people from the rudenture of rubefaction in such a finicky way as to alleviate the coacervation of cespitous and cepivorous disdain. The faineant world orbiting around cynosures enjoying sinecures that the balbriggan springhares of reticulose pleonexia designed by veilleuses of brachet serectrium asterongue popularity designated with crass balizes of only bakelite answers of echopraxia to every dented quidlibertarian fascination with their quisquilous periergia floundering because the bathmism of elite pedigree imposes the steepest murage against avenged cachalots that their beziques of betise immolated by the discernment of the capable against the brazen incompetence of hortatory disdain that the thermolysis of sacrilege becomes a better portfire than protective jaundice designated by gamidolatry to perform intorted gambados to soothe the idiosyncratic jobbernowls whose incapacity to subduplicate societal quandaries and correctly weigh the subreption of jannock provides a paralytic inertia to fasten schadenfreude above the tympany of macarism because the catastrophism against the metaplasm correctly brazen rather than cordial only to inauthenticity always bristles at the perendination of evil skullduggery that it might eventually fade from the brocades of supercilious elitism that uses pundonors against mercedary enrichments. Many a time ago already elapsed by the portfire of skalds of jimswingers of sarangousty predicating their vehemence on axiomatic psyiurgic morkins the casualties of many a conflict witnessed by the depredation of morale even when sustained by the puckery of whipstaffs that the fewterers of modern taste deranged by their ginglymus constrained by their thalwegs that sejugate raltention from comprehension might find it incumbent to celebrate never a saiga that berates the many nightjars of saki but rather to entomb novelty because of the pickelhaubes of portbeagles flummoxed by their evaporating fortunes always avenge those who stand in the way of nivial and nivellated securiform and scalariform dementia that is the senicide of many a monocular cause witnessed by barbaric cyclops so intorted in the most pedestrian of antics that his incapacity to even see single borts from the boschveldt and singular leaps among the varsal capacity of proselytism that his ineptitude staggers the stenometers of the most dismal apprehension of his wagered capacity for any kind of stamina in any discipline. These poltophagous idiosyncrasies enjoyed by the oppositive acclaim of those pourparlers of castrametation designed by jabirus preventing stirpiculture of chrysopoetics for cachalots guarded by the blackguard of the ventrad camarilla rather than spayed by the cespitous vinegaroons of poikilothermic aims to plumeopicean ragtaggers entrapped by vapulation rather than informed of bonanza that we might starkly refrain from endorsing majoritarian lewdness as the new credo of a reborn republic constituted around the mahouts of idealism and the magnalities of those who posture in support of the noosphere rather than entangle themselves in the wase of imposture only because catalfalques angry of coquelicot politics might find the calcariferous disdain of pollarchy too much of an enormity to stomach with a stomacher. In the secundine revival of riveted artifacts of sometimes galeanthropic velleity that the skalds of scavons always maraud around to deprive of vehemence the maladroit malaise of the junctition of clitter and clinkstone because of a widespread malcontent that the sedigitated sidestep by every careful lurch on the bobbinet common to resourceless bodaches that we might witness the dying wish of the stellions to become the hamparthia of entire nations cribbling with propriety the bathmism centripetal to the public morale rather than the vacillation of internecine political balkanization in the barnstorm against the security of gonfaloniers to thrive without synsematic declension because of misappropriated vilipended ignorance widespread among those that clamber insistently and with insolence against the gravity and gravitas of the pundonors of cadastre rather than a sublime lackaday morose regret of saturnism waged by sideration in thick boschveldt to depose and derange many. Many tarry because of the umbrage of ultrageous litigation enthusiastically brought with coemption of the celebrated vanguard baldric retinue jolting the enthusiastic boltrope wegotists into the braxy of their shakuhachi of shantung bucentaurs and shenangos emboldened by the vicissitude of the collective remnants of the shambles of sottoportico to assemble with the borts in their possession the wilding zalkengur of absolution rather than the faltering groundprox of phugoid and mugient demands of bolar that laveer silently in the slithers of a puckery night scaffolded by the dashpots of insular providence against termagants of negaholic deprivations of lifestyle and pedigree because of the bradyseismic subsultus against the moya of carpology that is axiomatic in its retched mistetches of ceratoid configuration around the ballaster of schadenfreude enthusiastic in its moribund capacity to disembrangle the better soldiers from the recklings of morose enchantment with lugubrious toil flummoxing all propriety in regard for the sanctiloquence of the present never to result in a future martyrdom of saturnism that would assuredly wipe out the blemishes of portfire from the memory of a disheveled Earth into a shambolic configuration that would result in a nivial morigeration to nivellated conditions of egestuous sejugated cephaligation of nebelwerfers rather than primiparas always lachrymose in regret now pregnant with reactionary desires to coerce change rather than wamble in the ginglymus of sesquiplicated triage around petty boundaries of shakuhachi inviting balbriggan disgrace. In the trismus of crackjaw siderism ennobled by baldric syntalities elective of belletrist in their formative cadges of procatalepsis and jarvey of the intorted blunge of degenerative capacities for meharis combustible only in camouflets of prestige that skirpettis contain by the skinters of springhares of denouement carefully managing larithmics to optimize the mantissa never of a vagarish vagantes venostasis of mottled pternology megacerine because of meleagrine despots of sedigitated attempts to provoke casualties of corbels in the neorama of many sinecures of simultagnosia extorted endlessly by vaccimulgent reedbucks of sinister racemation that the phugoid eutrapely and bellarmine capacity to trounce the sudd that creates the rebarbative bosket of embattled retrenchment in survival ethos because of the macropicide and yirds of many a poikilothermic wretchock of morality to denounce as a denizen of unholy chaptalization that the chaomancies of chabouks between the pleiromorphy of convictions and the moulin of lickerish fascinations of beerocracy of beeskeps of yaraks a commonplace deturpation that finally the pomace of regalia might sustain the mainsail cardimelech and cardiognost capacity of piscary urbacity finicky of any desultory castrametation wagered by sinturong of piscifauna negligent of agapism that their fortuitist regard for humane sanctiloquence that already perished from the Earth might be revived by the vasotribes of the whipstaff of declared decorum vanquishing all tantrels of gambados of gamidolatry so pickelhaube in their dereliction of picaroons that vinegaroons capable like jerboas disguised in the thickets of the night will depose their serendipity and revoke their citizenship from the habitations of the woubits of hell rather than the brevets of widgeons of animadversion propining in every saccadic misyoke of endeavor to find a commonplace destination agreeable beyond the bifids of internecine thalwegs of sejugation rather than assimilation.

With aphids and cherubs barking up the wrong tree
A November with rain on its mind
clicks a heel in the underbrush, where all things creep
in the ether floss of our lost tendrils of Time
emergent in luminous twine
every stitch, a rivet in a concrete swamp.
tethering a plight.

II

Christmas lights lockjaw hamlets with crepe frost
glistening earthbound color wheels in the jagged blanket
of a crisp 3 AM. a covert Decembering as such a night
is want to do.

then the gray weeps
as window panes
tell you
Why?

Manipulating grief, ***** hands -
open the lid,
release imagos. Eyes are blank.

You unravel the last of roses.
Surface tension wavers. An imbecile
sky pours the eyes, nose and ears.

Courtyard fills again, morphed resurrection.
I am persona non grata
in my own home. The moon does not cry.

Mystical lights. Headstones not legible.
Lockjaw. Waiting for morning-glory.
Stars are blinking.

Still I am stupid, courting my failures.
Cushion of thorns, I am weary of heavens.
Me, this earth, I do not die.

i keep telling myself people are not allowed to just exit and re-enter my life as they please, but i leave the door unlocked, so what does that make me? every "i love you" i never got to say is still stuck to the roof of my mouth, others have tried to pry it out of me, but the memory of you is like lockjaw. and you know i'm too weak to ignore you. i learned how to translate your texts from a drunken mess back into english. i am fluent in apology, but i don't want to hear them anymore. stuck between i love you's  and that not being good enough for either of us, what do we do now? Where do we go from here? Do we even do anything? As if simply loving someone was ever enough for anyone. I miss you so much, i never wanted to be anywhere you were not.

i am inside her skin, expanding to fill every fold and vein, everything stiff and taut and thick with pressure. i am her fingertips, her kneecaps, the back of her throat—and i can feel everything. like liquid i pool and congeal where the surface gives way—a hand is on the back of her head and suddenly her skull is a quarry after a long rain. her tongue meets something hard and becomes a root in damp soil, heavy and swollen and pregnant with water.

i want to feel how he touched you, exactly as you felt it. i want to know where you slept on this bed—i want to lay exactly where you laid. i want to watch every movement on his face in real time, study every twitch, follow his eyes everywhere. i want to hear every word he said to you—i need to hear it like it’s being said to me, i need to feel his breath in your ear. i want to know what the room smelled like. i want to feel your ***** rising.


a forearm, frantic and blind, reaching; submerged shoulder-deep in freezing wet, disembodied at the surface refraction. a fist finds the small of her waist at the bottom, latches on like a pitbull with lockjaw, so desperate and helpless, so violent—she is reeled in like a world record muskie. the pressure suffocates—the tension breaks and she bursts on impact, paper-thin dermis ruptured and insides spilling all over; virginal and spongy, even through the hardened rural water. there is nothing left but pieces, deflated: scraps of a water balloon on the pavement. a starving fisherman left with loss and waste, defeated by his own panicked desperation. he throws what’s left of the body overboard; lets it float dead and weightless, belly up, embarrassed.

a glance is a puddle of spit on the floor; whatever you did is a school bus-sized ditch slick and deep with black water.

her nausea becomes me.
i can’t even imagine you doing something like that.
i can’t even imagine why you would.

and, again, i am wide-eyed facing the wall.
again, i feel this same deep-belly despair, betrayal, gnawing and beating,
filet knife in between my ribs again,
and again i will feel this.
and this will not be the last time.
(you will protect me from the world but
i have to protect the world from you?)

-

the fish is gutted,
mealy flank flayed clean through and removed--
nothing soft or fleshy wasted.
the fish remains with her structure; bones fixed, exposed yet intact,
viscera still-trembling,
eyes alive and unmoving.
in the sink are two neat cuts of meat; one from each side, each about the length of a pocket bible.
the trash outside the shed is full of bluegill waste tossed whole,
bodies robbed of flesh and scale but still moist and twitching,
tiny mouths still quivering, gasping silently for something.

Get your hand off my shoulder, pig/
You don't even know me, dogg/
Barking too much/
I'll make them all shut the **** up/
Like Somalian ******/
My thoughts are double shotgun blasts/
Of random jagged phrasing/
And my funnybone is broken/
Like my home is/
Lockjaw; I don't make promises/
I say "inshaaAllaah"/
Then see what God allows/
I need you... to be somebody else/
And if I cry for help/
They say "get a job", or "take a pill"/
But you can't be the illest 'til/
Medication is refused/
Madman at the park/
Bazooka toothpaste grindhouse/
Too hyped up on my mania/
K-K-**** your radio/
Head full of dread, locked/
And the "truth" is full of holes/
Waiting for apocalypse/
But it's taking way too long/
I am not alone.../

Get your hand off my shoulder, pig/
You don't even know me, dogg/
Mouse howling at the moon/
Yelling at my cellphone/
I never was a fan of wool./