i         am        rare                arrogance        brilliantly
caked in sinuous batter inexorably fluid taught
grime, as the invited breath  of salt pillars in my
nostrils. like god, like christ's woefully placarded
woody drizzled body  the autumn is also every sign
of poesy and the imminent closure of flaming stodgy
existence
his season is waiting at the fore. ready to mass swiftly
white exuberance snowly at the behest of gray freckled heavens
long and talking paleness, in tiniest majority, flakes

flakes abounding footing the asphalt gardens and the naked
arbor flesh by the lakes. by the lakes
    says some trees, "we are and justly so shall be, for a time longer than
thou who are more temporary than we. like grass, wither succulently
afore the mounding **** of time; eroding assuredly thy pink
sack of viscous organisms in unnoticeable obvious certainty."
and they said so, the trees, they said life
and i said
i said "axe"

Eastern Montana Badlands
1930s....

Coal where one found it,
Scoria hills,
Layered lignite
Waiting near the surface.

Burning lignite beds,
Smoldering centuries old,
Scarring and turning clay to scoria,
Crumbling rock,
Testimony to lightning fires
Beneath the hills.

Crude mines backed into cliffs,
Pick and shoveled coal
Free for the risky taking
Heated homes.

Coal caves,
Low and gaping,
Horizontal shafts.
Wagons first, then
Trucks backed in.

Crowbars and picks
Brought lignite ceilings
Crashing in rotten shatters
Mounding, sometimes burying
Trucks below.

My father told me
How he helped
Chris Ginther,
Deaf coal miner,
Hammer holes,
Insert charges,
Long fuses, trailing.

Old Chris packing holes,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping...
Lighting fuses,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping.

My father said he'd yell
"We need to go!"

Old Chris
Seemed never to hear,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Until finally...
Sauntering out
Before the rumbling Thump.

I can see the two,
Chris and my father,
Just a boy,
Lost in lignite clouds,
Coughing.

Heart broken
wounds open
words left unspoken

head pounding
heart ache hounding
tissues mounding

go NO stay
please come play?
Let me see your insides
lets see where the pain hides
take down your confines

I am a child again craving his approval
watching my hearts removal
all the whilst his face scrunched in reproval

am I ugly on the inside too?

Thoughts racing
pain facing
its okay babe but this may sting

cutting deeper, oh god whats left
you've taken it all my heart, my life, my breath

just a little more princess
dont stress
the way I make you feel in between shall repress

all the times you said goodbye
all the lows but never the highs

ill make you feel new again
dont fight me, its all in vein
I promise this one last cut and no more pain!

Falling fast,
taking time.
Delicately dreaming,
past prophecies.
Feeling fine,
loving life's lies.

Falling fast,
through time.
Trying to tame,
my malicious mind.
Memories mounding,
silently sounding,
alarms and animals,
waking wildly.

smiles

smiles are contextual
                   social
                   constructed

         smiles aren't something I do very often
thankyou.verymuch

but, occasionally, i'm looking for everything and nothing
and i see it in the way her hips sway when she walks

And I Hate That.
I Never Did That.
Before.

and now i'm smiling.
you think i'm lying?
later i'll be crying.
why isn't she dying?
Isn't That What We Do?!

the brick walls surround me
    the depression's mounding up, here!
        I Am Not One Of Those Pigs
           but sometimes you've gotta find something to feel good about ****

To have avenues
nuanced ancient
scientific entities
titrates rationed
rather irrationally
at a rats rate

-do you feel
anything yet?-

To have access
to the Brocas and
Wernicke at all times
-unless compromised-

Nonsensical arrangement
of bits of sounds
mounding to some
amount

And it rains here,
with the soak of grass
between my toes.
Blessed  lichen mounding
on tree stumps.
The Magical sun ascends
upon the hill.
My soul is replenished.

Today I heard the dancing of the wind,
salty air upon my clothes.
I braided with nature,
like sandals and clay
forever in rhythm.

Mounding mustard faith.
A tiny start; bigger end.
A bloom, drops, becomes.

I walk with grace
Not gracefully
But alive
And therefore with more grace
Than may be deserved

My life
An affront to itself
A poetic type of irony
Which deconstructs the whole
To find each piece
Microcosmic
Our lives

Kaleidoscopic melding of melting crown moulding mounding

On the floor

Where I lay flat
On my stomach
Waiting for it to form
Into something more exciting
Or at least less
Digestible

A child’s pursuit
Of confounding
To turn around
And confound

To be got
To be able to get

What I’m trying to say is one time I ingested psilocybin mushrooms in the forest and climbed to the top of a tree fort. My friend told me to draw what I saw and handed me a pen. I grabbed the pen and it slipped from my hand to the ground. And I knew. I knew in that moment there was nothing to say. I saw two shadowed figures standing on the ground and one of them pointed up to us.

The wheel is turning
Ever and onward
Rushing at speeds
Incomprehensible
To the acute observer

Obtuse the angles
Of the eye which catches
The periphery
And sees moving
Or shifting

The pavement is veiled in zig-zagging patterns superimposed and waiting to split open revealing the universe

And I lay
Tired and wide-eyed
A stone stabbing the back of my head
Staring at the sky
Wondering how infinite
Infinity

A vain pursuit
To place words
Where there are already
Stars and space

What I’m trying to say is, months later I was in the same forest with the same friend who had given me the pen which taught me to speak. We were doing ******* off of the case of a digital scale by a fire pit lined with fallen trees. It was fall and it was windy and we all had to gather around to lay out lines so it wouldn’t blow away. My friend points to the tree fort and asks if I remember the time we sat there tripping. I remember the shadowed figures and I remember there is nothing to say.

Silence a slippery thing
Not like darkness
Gauged in tone
Simply there
Or not

Seemingly never not
Always a ringing
Almost chirping
If you listen close
To the walls

The stories of dead trees whose lives spanned unspoken aeons and whose roots tasted plowed and plagued soil - felt the crisp rain before we turned it to acid.

I hear this rain
I stand out in it
Feel it on my skin
Listen closely to its story

A stalemate
To say things are known
In opposition to that
Which dictates knowing

What I’m trying to say is, I spent a lot of time going back to that place. There were abandoned storage containers we used to smoke **** and drink beer inside of. I would try to phase through the walls on dextromethorphan, always getting stuck about a foot behind where the wall is. You see it’s not the wall you have to worry about, it’s the underlying concept of a barrier that manifests itself in a wall that I could never seem to get past.

Until that time
Asleep in the next room
I walked to the bathroom

Whispering walls foreboding dark fortunes. Blue reflections of artificial light contorting face and shadows.

I saw it

It placed one finger on its lips

The other hand outstretched
Reaching in to darkness

What I’m trying to ask is,
What I need to know is,
“What were you reaching for?”