~
Lift the veil from a grayscale morning. Vividly imagistic. An odalisque no more.

Her shape beneath the gown is a foreign land, a series of quiet revelations. Its pattern manifests as pinpricks of light perforating the shirred fabric of his heart.

The preponderance of dream in her eyes becomes a call and response evoking purely imaginary spaces. The contained chemistry is beautifully insular, monochromatic.

And there her lips. Into claustrophobic kiss. This lower register of love comes in unadorned, subtle colorings like the darkest part of night.

One thousand shades of gray.
One single light of white.
And everything merges in the night.
~

The bicycles were a forged parent-permission slip
But well-forged.
I lifted myself over the tear in the truck's seat cover, not sliding
Not perforating further for today.

The road was short, short enough to have ridden the bicycles from first start to real start.
But that would not have been exotic
Connection is exotic, and channels must be followed through an antfarm
Proper etiquette must be observed with touch-me-nots

The bicycles were easier to lift from the bed with two
I gave him that, passing a front end, and jammed the wheelspokes with a jabbed finger
So that the damp spinning would not flick his face with groundwater
I expected it to hurt. My expectation tapped lightly.

That narrow pock-marked blacktop was my windtunnel
The air stroked its thumbs over my eyelids and I ached to push, breathe, push further
He held me back with his slow handlebars,
His slow kickstand clicking.

Pedaling slowly is more difficult than flying.
One finds gladness in choosing leaves to crunch with an inch-wide tire
And high-fiving low-hanging branches is socially satisfying.
He smiles behind the white mustache, and I don't mind.

A barely coherent deity entered frowning,
giving his incisive javelin kinetic life,
malicious, negative omnipresence.
Perforating quickly, random, stealth targets,
unified viciously with xenogenic youth, zoic.

the sun is scorching through the parking lot in pillars or light, shivering on the pavement in waves of reality shaken by matter, it reveals the change in matter. so fluid. i see an old man walk up to the gas pumps by the mr. mikes. he walks past the car wash, past the little barrier between the road and the grass on the side. stands there, looks back and forth as if calculating speed and distance of passing vehicles. in shock i see that he is trying to figure when to jump.

he stops, turns, and begins to walk up the busy main street. as he goes, he take slips of paper out of his coat pocket, stares at the receipts and then surreptitiously drops them behind him. instead of children dropping crumbs in the woods, i see an old man shedding silent messages in his wake as he trudges through suburban forests of pavement and condos. how strange i think and pick myself up out of the car, running past the chain link fence rounding the edges of the hardware store parking lot. she won't even miss me i think fleetingly of the person inside who might come out soon.

the old man is walking at a parallel angle to i, as i was too hasty to know his story before changing the outcome of his journey. he sees me, and stops to face me on the opposite side of the street. we make eye contact, a car whips past, then an ambulance flooding the hues of the air red and blue. i remember there is an accident up the street. there were almost eight or ten cars pulled over near walmart. traffic was backed up and the **** in front of me had been rubbernecking like his middle name was bashful. somebody was probably dying a mile from here. he looks at me a second more and i feel the sadness wafting off of him, so strong it crosses air, barriers, vehicles, straight shotgun windshield shattering screeching into my chest. he turns and walks away. continuing to leave his trail even after knowing he had been observed.
i run across and bend down to retrieve the papers casually, clamped lips around the cigarette i had somehow managed to light, my body's natural response to everydamnthing. i do not look at the papers, just stick them in my plaid breast pocket and rush back to the car. a few hours later i am ready to read them, and i unfold the papers.

first
1: PRE COFFEE 2.00 F
2: SCALLOP POTATO .99 F
3: SHAKERS CHICKEN .79 F
4: POULTRY .79 F
5: POULTY .79 F

SUBTOTAL 5.57

CUSTOMER COPY
EBT APPROVED
EBT FOODSTAMPS

and then
DISTRICT COURT
CASE NUMBER 1161CR001443
DESCRIPTION 1161CR001443 Commonweath vs. M*, Michael J
On Behalf Of M*, Michael J
Payment Type                                Amount
CASH                                              130.00
GENERAL REVENUE FUND               80.00
VICTIM WITNESS                             50.00
Change                                              .00
Balance Due                                   20.00

Comments:



this feeling of overwhelming misery comes over me. i allow it to flood in and fill me with images of this man's life. his shame, his despair, his shackles, that cause that feeling of life being a bad migraine that never goes away.
but then i feel sympathy and compassion seep in afterwards, so silent and gentle. i think of how my presence may have changed that man. to see someone run to him, show him he is not invisible, not just another lost soul in the court system, not alone and invalidated by society simply for existing, not all of society is like that. i hoped my awareness would shout to him too, perforating the silent barriers to say "look, you are not unseen, you are not unheard, i know you exist! it's not time to die yet michael."

michaels seem to stick to me. their stories are vast and painful and hard to peel off, like dry glue. their struggles worthy of attention. michael you are real. michael, i see you. michael someone is listening, somebody knows that you exist. i know it is passover and it probably feels like you are dying in your sleep with no blood painting your doors for protection, but you do have that blood. it comes from your body michael. your struggles become your pain become your understandings become your transcendence. michael, you are intelligent, i can see it in your eyes. now do yourself a favor and

don't jump.

Bathtubs don’t work for quantum suicide
But every time I take one,
A part of me dies

What was nice under the crescent aglow?
Drunk on stars, or the moon lit show…

Ash of night, cradled what was once mine,
The repertoire of ever-syncing- jawlines.
Puissant is the chalice, its exaltation shined so bright,
Bestowed liberation underneath the chatoyant light,

The open windows left  niveous  fogs-
Breathed -stained –air,  against crystal *****.


Alive and one, under the entire earthly tempo,
Together left her organic imprints of art nouveau.
Beneath the warmth and petrichor ground,
The Lord and Lady commence to be crowned.
...Tree roots sink as veins of gods.
The serpent whispers his mellifluous facade...


The sharp shove of love’s first arrow
Lover’s spit, a seed for cupid’s bucolic furrow.
Scripture of Solomon’s *** temple of doom
All within the nicotine-stained-blue-infrared-bedroom,

Velvet allure, bellies of vigor,
The cold point, the pulled trigger.
Dance of Thelma, ancient cults of non-lovers
Feasting north, under the Horned God’s antlers.
The concoction of the widow’s deviated lust
Skins alive, the excited wolf-mans’ husk…

The gun’s mouth ex hailed bullets of smoke
Piercing hot wounds became tender lilts in up word strokes.
Still, they brought, perforating ice knives through the chest
Catching fades perpetually, just until two came abreast.
The shadow dalliance and hair pulls leave those weary,
The anise flower seeds sanction the suffering query.

What was once so beautiful at night?
Forgotten, as I turned red-haired-heathen in morning’s sight

So I take my hot bath, inure in my offing.
Emollient paean of the porcelain,
...which is my skin
See you, my ethereal being,
In short time spring will be fleeting

After you’ve been home for quite awhile,
With enough time to eat and drink the fruits
of the daily grind, once you have watched your
favorite show and talked your favorite talk,
Their eyes tease the thought mused by many.

You decipher the lucid expression on their face
in no time at all, or in enough time to find their lips
pursed tautly against yours, and they say,
‘Every time we say goodbye’…as they lead you
to the digs of dreamland, you wonder why a little.

You caress the thought chewed on by most as they
****** your hand. (Your arm barely fondles the burly walls
of the hall they lead you through and through to the room
at the end of the corridor.)

You trip over a laundry basket for two. They laugh,
help you up, looking in your eyes, perforating the retinas
like those cheap knives at some tacky store. You make it
to the door, it creaks open just a crack to click the little flicker back.

The space is small but roomy, with enough slack to let on a bed,
with plenty of fixtures to plug plugs into pluggers or whatever you
call them. You stalk the sack without the stigma that pillowed its petals.
You pull back its folds to reveal the nectar between its leaves.
Fresh linen. Smells like the breeze. They say, ‘Turn off the lights.’

-
for the first time
since i could sort the cutlery
on my own, you've cast me
as the bent or dented spoon,
the chipped ceramic bowl;
let the dog eat out of it,
toss it in the trash --
-
and there are too many little dashes
perforating the circumferences of clocks,
and no one to cut around the edges --
with little dull scissors and colorful handles;
the kind you used to piece me out of your
scrapbook.
-
i'm sorry this is so passive-aggressive
but i just don't know of any other way
to cope with the fact
that you just don't have time in your life
to be there for me anymore,
that there isn't room for another episode,
that i need to keep control --
-
like it's as easy as deciding
to have tea, or at least not coffee,
but regardless of my order
you're not the ******* barista in this analogy,
so kindly get the hell out from behind the register.
-

stop comparing yourself to other people. please? you are just fine, you're beautiful and i accept you. you've got to stop calling each other names and labeling each other based on the things that have been said to you. let the past lie. you're perforating your dreams. they'll die and you'll have nothing left to go after. i don't care how long it takes to assure you that your worth isn't ever going to be defined by what's been said to you. you animate the wildest sides of me. you should believe in you because i believe in you and you should too. stay you, but be happy and trust in the One who loves you every single day. even though you are in the condition that you are in. you'll be perfectly okay.

© Melissa Carlson 2015

In the bain marie of life
The boiling,
evaporated
water underneath,
Scolds untrained fingers and hands.
Unscathed are the extremities of workers who serve:
Little Hitlers and Maos,
awaiting to have their egos inflated, and their endowments stroked.
All so they can perpetrate atrocities in a world craving for more, entertainment.
All so they can penetrate their
animosity
towards girls craving for more

containment.

Prepare ingredients in metal tray, made from
Futuristic technology. Erected steel, carved and shaved,
moulded to perfection.
Finesse in
Postmodern civilisation,
Allowing hungry
Delinquent to stuff
cake holes with garbage.
Gruel, bangers, tripe and trotters, spotted ****, black pudding, haggis, bulls testicles.

Plastic.
Gum, and wrapper.
Thrown,
in bin.
Mess and stink.
Perforating orifices and permeating nasal passageways.

Kitchen sink,
The end of day arrives
Sanitation process occurs.
The end of shift awaits.
She takes off sweat filled hair cap,
Takes off juice stained chef pants.
Kicks off steel capped boots.
Pulls out
Smelly,
Sock.

Rest in bed,
to awake for new day.
Gravity raises the sun.
Rinse and repeat
bain marie
reheat.

[Author's Note: These are song lyrics.]

When I'm pining for the power to yield
Breaking all the branches I seize
Acres for the taking in a forest of mistakes
I can't see for the trees

I level
With the shallow playing field
Dreaming up a blueprint to floor you
Delicately drafting
Inconspicuously crafting
The grand facade before you

Where my art lies

The best is underwhelming
When it comes to helping
How I promised I woul...

So I'm peeking past the pitch of my prime
Modeling the modern stage
Perforating patience with a paradox
In place of where the sophist meets the sage

I level
With the hallowed bottom line
Hopeful like the point of a nail
Architecture fractures
In apocalyptic rapture
Where false frameworks prevail

There my heart lies

The beat is overwhelming
When it comes to helping
How I swore I could

I guess I'm knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood

Excess
Will not lead to progress
Will not let me access
What I learned I should
Rid me of

Termites
Crawling into airtight
Trademarks of my disguise
Make me decide I'm good

When I'm just knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood


© Michal Czechak 2016

Picture yourself  taking the first of many punches
Picture yourself blowing out a few birthday candles
Picture yourself watching a doorknob turn with wide-open eyes
Picture yourself clutching a pillow and weeping
Picture yourself watching a ewe with a broken leg being shot
Picture yourself being guided by old hands who've seen war.
Picture yourself perforating a decaf coffee can
Picture yourself in doubt and guilt
Picture yourself damning a missed chance
Picture yourself gesticulating wildly and arguing about a parking ticket
Picture yourself telling a friend that you love them, and not feeling weird about it.
Picture yourself sipping the greatest cup of coffee you'll ever have
Picture yourself hand-feeding a small animal
Picture yourself shakily trying to appear like you know what you're doing
Picture yourself naked under a full moon
Picture yourself lost in a new city and loving ever minute
Picture yourself walking into a room and hearing everyone drop dead silent
Picture yourself roasting a marshmallow
Picture yourself looking down at a horrible injury that doesn't hurt yet
Picture yourself carrying a heavy load up a staircase
Picture yourself in an empty echoing room
Picture yourself making ceviche
Picture yourself illuminated by the blue lights of a police cruiser
Picture yourself staying cool and detached in front of someone you want to rip the clothes off of and make love to, right that second.
Picture yourself startled by a loud noise
Picture yourself cleaning something inordinately
Picture yourself in a boat on a river....
Picture yourself finding something funny, then feeling bad about it
Picture yourself remaining calm when a step-parent judges your choices
Picture yourself with the trappings of a more successful person
Picture yourself, standing in your best clothes, two hours after graduating college, drinking cheap malt liquor, on the balcony of a cheap apartment, beside the best friend you'll ever know.

.
An empty corner bends
beneath street lights working overtime
and a bench, cold and lonely,
damp from previous storms
and those threatening,
closing dark curtains
on a weary skyline,
beckons, offering a seat,
hard horizontal slats
last occupied by another
with hopes and dreams
left to wander, wondering why

A black cat crosses my path
and I laugh at its expression
Knowing it believes bad luck
will come of this, little does it know,
I have no path for it to cross,
no destination, no planned outcome
or luck to speak of
Pushing the crosswalk button
again and again
and still it reads "don’t walk,"
I do as I am told

I shouldn't look, what's the use,
it always the same, you spill your soul
and it's washed away with the last phrase
He gets them, oh he gets them
on every one, no matter what it is
and **** if she doesn't get them too,
hell even crap gets them,
far too many times
But I shouldn't complain,
it's nice being liked,
you don't even have to hear the click
It's just hard sometimes when you realize,
you're just not as good as you thought

Feeling drowsy now I settle in
on softened splinters and peeling paint,
counting passing cars like sheep
in the soothing flicker of
a faulty flourescent sign
at the 24 hour tattoo parlor
Where needles aren’t the only thing
spurting ink, perforating skin,
creating lasting impressions
that even a beautiful sunrise
can’t erase as I fall off to a world
that doesn’t seem so bad,
at least for a few hours,
hoping that when I wake
it wakes with me

Following fog from foreign lands--
sleep still etched,
dreams yet sketched to form.
Muffled clouds of shuffling sounds
submerged in deep & cottoned ears.
Grasping at whispered edges,
interrupted slivers dissipate & scatter.
Perforating an entombed quiet,
almost-noises punctuate the night
with cold finality.
Memories put on hold resurface,
conquering attention.
Dread sets in:
you are lost all over again.

My top and bottom incisors do not meet
the wall of your big toe between them,
my enamel spades crushing against your nail bed so gently,
perforating your toes’ soft bottoms so exquisitely.

My tongue slowly dances with your toes,
the ridges above and the arch below the foot,
you flinch at the tickle.

My mouth dancing like an anemic acrobat,
it finds his way along the high-wire of your fishnet guarded legs,
their pale contrast to the red cloth exciting.

Suddenly, you shudder as the muscle in my mouth finds
your flesh exposed above the stocking line,
I am a conquistador and I have discovered a new land – I will subjugate it,
taking it’s precious jewels and spices,
consuming them and getting fat with the richness that is this New World before me.

I devour you so slowly – is my mouth even moving?
It is leaving a trail,
slightly damp like a dehydrated slug,
a leech ******* each piece
until the bleached skin becomes en-crimsoned by the bruises
my biting and ******* have made.
Will you try to hide them?
I move on to places where this disguising will not be a concern, and you begin to spasm.

I’ve hung myself on these gallows,
and so having to die because of it,
I will relish it;
an abandonment atrocity of aestheticism.

Take your broken heart
From the cavern in your chest
Pull it out, and don't get queasy
Put it in a jar
Hide it under your bed
Never tell a soul
That you walk around without it
That you no longer walk around with it perforating on your sleeve
Until you hear a familiar melody
From underneath the bed frame
Your caged bird of a heart
As it whistles a happy song
Ready to go again
But for now
It's in a mason jar
Because
She once said my smile looked like a mason jar
And I love poetic endings

I don’t know the way can you show me
Because I don’t really know where to go
From here on or the step that happens next
After you find out that happiness is a figment of imagination
And everything you thought was true is now a lie
Looking back I wonder where her conscience went
Slipping underneath and recoiling back inside herself
Deeper inside seeking shelter in a place that I don’t
Even know anymore
A place that’s not my own
Can’t call it home
Emptiness comfort me
Listen to my questions
As you answer in silence
The sounds of silence perforating my mask
Glaring through two green eyes and locks of brown
And features morphing into that of defiance
Hoping no one really knows
Or finds a vacant shell
Filling up with liquid injecting poison
Faster unstoppable
Increasingly invading
Controlling the hands decorated with welts
As it takes over me
Why do I find solace in solitude?
The voices in my head speak to me
It feels better
Drown out
Ring again
The voices in my head telling me
This is the right thing to do
So my mouth compensates
For lack of a better word
Spewing out nonsense
Among other things
Better left unsaid

In the woods
During youthful days
A cabin stands irresolute
A great pond surrounds the yawning forest
Emphasized by a worn dock
Jutting into the glassy water

In the summer
Sailboats drift lazily
Along the surface
Driven
By gentle winds

But in the chill
Of bitter winter
The water freezes to icy blue
Cracks appear
As heavy feet touch the fragile slate

At night
The iridescent moon erupts
Bursting with quiet violence
Perforating gentle clouds
Transforming the water
Into diamonds

Everything
Is here
Within
Without
Hovering above the world
In flushed splendor
Lost in the wild
A love and a life

There is a shift in the air
        a divergent current, before an
              outpouring of shredded clouds.

                                   There is a difference
                             in the air
                                    said our reflections,
                                             irises caught in thin veins.

           There are creases upon my dried conscience
                  the sadness tears out of my eyes
                                       Threading my past memories
                              into cycles of fallacies.

                                         Yes, it must be something in the air
                                               the air we both grew up in
                                                 the breaths we smeared upon
                                                          birthday candles months apart.

                                                         ­            We had the same troubles,
                                                                   corresponding doubles,
                                                        ­    the same ventilation of lungs.

               Then the past settled, we grew up
                            our face darkened,

                          So I let out a flash of laughter
                                                your hissing thoughts closely pursuing it
                                                              ­       like two strands of lighting
                    Perforating the piers of my gut
Sure to switch off
                                           My Volatile Heart.

They glow,
Like indigestion
In the pit of the belly
Perforating coals of
After
Thoughts,
Just like this jagged
Piece of you
Smelling like
Last night’s bon fire
Still on my shirt
Torn out like a page
In your story
Briefly reminiscent
Of something bigger
That the world
Should like to hear
Fading now
Like broth in the stew,
None of your shape
Still there is a likeness
Of you in every
Sip of air
So I breathe
As echo

The rain
Has pressed
Upon my arms
And chilled these bones
To shaking with the
Hoary breaths
Of resignation
Always returning
To these embers
Hoping for
The flame
That once
Held in the warmth
Like bed time prayers,
But, I should move along
From these frost covered
Stones.


I should not question
The way of mortality
Or the paths it
Excavates
Through my meadows
But this vigil
By your embers
Is my small protest
Of endings
The inordinate rudeness
Of it’s tone
And the barbaric
Wailing
In its execution
Perhaps,
It is also
The only dirge
I can sing
When my voice
Has been
Strained by the fear
Of being forgotten.

though not a man in the mirror, per se
more a man behind it
with a penchant for schaudenfreude
smile yellow with sadism
the rot, the cavity
grinning from behind the glass
like some ******* Cheshire Cat
to my Tired Insecure Alice.

no two ways about it:
he is there and i am here
symmetrical
but for the man's barbed tongue
perforating mirror and
licking at the corners of my brain.

he sings an ode to a spindly leg
torso of crush'd cardboard box
predisposition for loquacity
(not a city you should visit)
and badly drawn countenance
scrawled across coffee-stained parchment.

so convincing is this
man behind the mirror
with his pejoratives
administered with utmost precision
surgically removed volition
saying things like:
"The City That Never Sleeps
would cower at the indelible image
that is the hulking bags under your eyes."

i have nicknamed him "Conscience"
in the hope of wrestling back control.