I kicked the radio - I admit

Hey, remember when you crashed the truck and
lost your phone while trying to replace a tire?

I remember when you stole the sun and used it to
warm butter for your popcorn

The radio's just a tinny audio ****-up, blasting bad rock
on bad speakers

That wasn't an insult.

-- It was my own **** fault

Clawing eyes out, drawing blood, kicking shins in,
busting skulls on hardwood floors

Just a tinny audio ****-up

Broken radios, trucks, bones, hollering calamities

It's a repeating pattern, I screamed. The clouds listened and they began to cry for me - I was all dried out

Summer sun will do that to you.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
But I'm serious, so very serious.
I wish you could hear me.
I am happy though, so lavishly gay and bright.
I wish I knew what it was like so I wouldn't....
I want people to trust me. I don't want people to fear me, to see the disgust that I am, I want them to see innocence, and girlishness and and see me as relatable. I WILL NOT JUDGE YOU! I WILL NOT! I love hearing about you and your struggles, about your sorrows, and I can understand it, because I can feel just like you can feel and I love to feel what you are feeling for that is my only feeling.

I try to justify everything. If I do something I can't explain, or say something I might not like, or think that a person might not like it, I try to justify it with some kind of reasoning. Such as, "It's poetic" or "sounds pretty" or "be worth is someday."

I just want to be understood, and I want to understand you. Can you not hear the gentle bass of the Milky Way galaxy, slowly turning, and us, a virus, an atom, a quantum, a tinny tinny thing doing silly boring things like brushing our teeth, walking, reading, writing, doing things we don't understand, doing things we can't understand, being in love, being out of it, eating candy, having ***, giving ***, doing homework, cleaning, worrying, eating more candy, drawing pictures, thinking, holding, creating, destroying, recycling, creating destroying, recycling, creating, destroying, recycling, can we do nothing else?

Turn, world, turn, sun, around in a slow beautiful bbbbbmmmmmm....
you are so beautiful!
Hands that know what to do,
feet that say things and tell you that life is precious and nothing is funny. Beautiful!
Life is so serious. We do things that are VAIN. To be vain means to do things which have no good purpose. We wash things so they are clean only to make them ***** again.

A man will, in winter, put his heavy coat on, zip up the zipper, pick up a hat and smooth it on to his head across his hair, then, take his left glove and put it on his left hand and take his right glove and put it on his right hand, put his left sock on his left foot, then put his right sock on his right foot, next he puts his left boot on his left foot and puts his right boot on his right foot, he reaches over and tightens the laces of the left boot then makes an "X" with the laces and puts the end of the right most facing lace under the left most and sticks it through the hole and pulls them tight to create a knot, next he creates a long ear-shape like that of a bunny using the right lace and wraps the left lace around counter-clockwise, next he sticks the sideways left lace through the passage that was created by looping the lace around, creating another ear, then he tightens both ears, he makes another "X" with the ears and loops the right most ear under and trough the hole, then tightens them by a process called "double knotting." He then takes this process of double knotting and applies it to his right boot. He stands up and goes to the front door, walks down the driveway and goes into his heated van so he can drive to his temperature controlled desk job. We are creatures of habit. We do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ov.......&...^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&...

I'm tryin' to teach a chair how to walk,
they have legs, but they just can't use 'em.

I am the young girl running around the house,
looking for the pony,
on Christmas morning,
while the ship is slowly sinking,
in a manure flavored sea.

I am the armless tennis player that
is convinced he will defeat Roger
in less than an hour,
using just one ball, over and over again.

I am Roy Wright at the beginning of the trial,
with a big stupid smile in my pocket,
and a tinny black book in my soul.
I am the faithful survivor of unfaithfulness
and I will be the one that lands on his feet,
in Scottsboro heaven.

I am Bartolomeo V, the one with no vendetta,
having a croissant,
waiting for Nicola to shave, before we take off in one of
Rothko's paintings. May the 5th be
with the ones who actually did it.. and, you know what?
I honestly think Cronaca Sovversiva is a great title,
even though I haven't read the ******
thing and I have no sympathy,
whatsoever, for any anarchist.
Hell! It's hard for me getting my **** together in complete order. I don't want to think what would become of me
in complete anarchy.

I am the one that wakes up every day
with a stupid smile under his nose,
not remembering the scent of yesterday's failure.
The one that starts dreaming as soon as he gets up,
ignoring the fact that he might be an ignorant
*****,
with no desire to go to outer space,
but with huge hopes up his sleeve for
M. Damon and his agricultural knowledge.
I am in favor of all fancy schmancy Earth saving knowledge,
and I am aware that all that space debris in my head
will do some serious damage one day.
If they ever figure out how to get it all in.

I am the tic, that will come after the tac-toe, this time, and not the other way around!
the encore of every good concert,
the yin for the panda ****,
the slim leg for the flamingo,
the gambler,
the rambler,
the day rider.

I am the Syrian boy that just learned to swim and
all of this infinite blue soup
is nothing more than a Saturday stroll.
I will get in the back of that truck and I will breathe
the purest air that someone could ever breathe,
I will sleep the sleep of reason and monsters will not be produced.

You have my word!

I am the skin before the needle shoots up
all its ink.

I will be perky. I will be green.

I walk into my office/abode, closing the door behind me. It's 9:00 PM. Well, 9:03 PM. I sit down at my desk and open my laptop, placing a tall glass of diet cola on the mouse pad next to the computer as a make-shift coaster. Three ice cubes float in the bubbling blackness. I've found two ice cubes won't make your beverage cold quickly enough, while four ice cubes will overpower it — water it down. You can't have that. It's got to be three ice cubes.

I open up my word processor to a new document. I've got to write something — this blank rectangular expanse has haunted me for long enough. I type some gibberish, then delete it. What do I want to write? I remember reading somewhere you're supposed to write what you like.

I minimize the page and open the Internet. No new emails. I could watch **** for a bit. I've always preferred the "amateur" videos because the people in them resemble actual people. You know, the guy's a little overweight, and the girl's got excessive arm hair, or a weird mole. He mounts her from behind, sweating profusely. Their bodies jiggle for ten or fifteen minutes. There's no eye contact, but you can tell they're in love. The TV's on. The guy looks up at it sporadically. Maybe makes a face at the cell phone he's filming his ******* on. The picture quality is low, and the audio is pretty tinny, but you can usually make it out all right. I saw this one video of a guy and a girl getting it on and some other dude was there filming it. You could tell it was an amateur video because she was kind of weird-looking. But, like, did he ask his buddy to come back to the motel with this chick he picked up and film them *******?

No, I can't get behind all that glossy, glamourous, professional ****. There's too much Botox and plastic surgery. They look too good. And it's all fake, too. These people have *** for a living. Watching them go at it, it just feels empty. They're not really into it. And I don't know if seeing guys with twelve-packs and ten inch ***** invokes a certain inferiority complex in me or what it is, but I know I just don't care for it.

Okay. Back to the writing. Now, what do I like to write? I like action movies, so... how about... a serial killer. No, a contract killer. So it's a serial, contract killer who... but there has to be some sort of conflict. Okay, a serial contract killer who falls in love with... but there needs to be something that makes it unique. Something unique that sets it apart. So how about he... or she?... she falls in love with...

I wonder if I have any new messages on Plenty of Fish. Maybe that cute brown-haired Asian-looking girl responded to me. What does "D2F" mean?

No, she hasn't. Well, when did I send the message? Yesterday night? Let's see when she was last online...

Today, at 4:13 PM.

Ah.

Well, maybe she just didn't notice it.

Yeah. That's it.

Maybe the target falls in love with the killer. Maybe they meet early on and they hit it off or something at some swanky soirée. And then... she's hired to **** him. Or her. Yeah, that could be interesting: a lesbian contract killer. Never seen that before. But she's got to be hot. Yeah. Not like the monster Cameron Diaz played in that movie... Monster. But who hires her? Her husband? Yeah, that might work. But would he **** her for being a *****? Or maybe... she stole something from him. Some money. Or she found out he's a criminal, and she's gonna squeal.

Lesbian **** is interesting. Especially when they use the strap-on thing. But I don't know why they **** on it first. I mean, it's just plastic. Maybe they know it's mostly going to be guys watching it. Who knows.

But seriously, why would that cute Asian girl not respond to my message? Her profile did say "msg me :)", after all. Her profile said her favourite book is Fight Club. I think she meant the movie. I wrote "haha ya brad pitt is the shiiit". I don't know. I never know what to write in those messages. I always feel obligated to say something about their profile so they know I didn't just look at their pictures.

I'm good-looking, aren't I? I've had girlfriends. I've had *** a bunch of times. I haven't had *** in a while, but... okay, so I don't have a six-pack, but I go to the gym. I just get so anxious with all those muscly dudes walking around. Maybe I should get a private trainer.

I need more diet cola. No, wait — no more soda. Maybe all that aspartame is messing with my head. Anyway. Back to the contract killer. How many pages do I have? Six. Well, the average movie is about a hundred minutes, and if one page equals one minute in screen time, I'm only... oh look, I got a new email.

Stef341 has responded to your message.

"not my type, sorry"

Huh.

Well, whatever. Fight Club is a stupid movie anyway. How are Brad Pitt and that other guy supposed to be the same guy? That doesn't make any sense.

Back to the script. I need a title. Every good movie has a good title. How about The Lesbian Killer? No, that's too risqué. Nothing with lesbians in the title. This is a serious movie. With a lot of passion. Maybe a *** scene or two. Whatever, I'll just call it The Contract Killer. Starring Cameron Diaz.

A for Austerity, P for Poverty,
R for Recession, and U for Unemployment.
Recession is in town with her three

Un-amusing friends, whose hands are always
on their lips; and wherever the gang goes
they take away the fun from that place;

tinny Tanana biko biko! Whose car is
unemployment going to take away, to
make him use his leg-dis benz?

Eeny Meeny Miney mo! Whose house is poverty
going to crash in, and undo a
lifetime’s work in a matter of weeks?

tinny Tanana, biko biko! What will austerity
sell to the state? Is it a string for
the ministers to tighten the state purse?

Hear! Hear! Recession is in town. Bad
policies invited her with her three friends
to party and paint the town gray;

shame on the leaders on whose watch the
doors of the state were opened to recession
and her three friends; their ears will

be filled with the wailing and insults of the
populace, like the cry of a widow, whose
only son has passed away, fills the house.

I like my headphones for the
Insulation. Sometimes my ears
Take in too much stray noise,
Dredge up too much disorienting
Mud from the depths of a TV
Screen or an iPod. Then I can
Always snuggle into my headphones
And be silent - and silence is a
Dear dear commodity, to be sure,
When every other scene-
Stealing, pudgy-mouthed buffoon
Has to put his ten cents in. So
Much sound should be a sin;
Background music, ambient noise,
Music for airports, and pubescent
Boys screeching from tinny silver
Speakers near the wall. I don't
Want it, not every bit, not all
The hate and the slippery tongues
That speak and salivate and don't
Say anything human. I want to reprimand,
To excommunicate them from
This Holy rite of sound. (And really,
I would be content to never hear
Music if I could block out the roundabout
Fights and the sultry nightlife descriptions
Gushing from my screen, if I could
Use my headphones to keep
That liquid crystal from pouring in
My too needfully silent ears.)
Maybe I'll follow a painter's path:
All visuals and open dripping wet
Wrath with a noisy race. I can be a
Terrifying girl. Cut off my ears and
Be deaf to the world. Wrap me in
Canvas and chase me back into the
Woods on a starry starry night.

This is the place where people come to forget that they will die one day.

They let their conscience build up on the linoleum floor in puddles,
deep and dark
And follow the crowd to the next store
And the next
And the next.

This place will bleed you.
It will tear your pockets out of your clothing
And your children’s hands from yours.

A new shirt.
A new TV.
Well done.
You’ve done well.

But when you leave the white walls
The music tinny and dim
Escalators and litter
You still won’t feel free.

I want to spit my tongue
straight out into the wind
Because I'm better stricken dumb
  than smart-mouthed or thick skinned
Straight on to the edge of town
  I will chase my temper out
There, we'll talk about the "whethers"
  We'll talk the sun down
And I'll hope that's the last time we speak

Walk across the bridge on 5th Street
Half reflecting on past choices
Glimpse the moon on Goose Creek's surface
Spy a ******.
Recall voices.
Like the one my father used before last April blew his chest up
Or ones I can't remember 'til I heave my boiling guts up
                           in some yard.

A tinny crash through piled leaves,
          I just want to make it home--
The S.P.D. are everywhere
          and we don't get along so very well

It's gotten late and gotten old.
It's gotten cold the heat is busted back where I make my home
I've hit my wall, I hit the pavement
Stand me up--two streets to go

5th and Bellevue ain't so bad
I'm nearly home.

rattling thunder
pummels the tinny tin can roof
under which you drive
through the swelling swamp-roads.

you say this is england.
i say this is climate change.
snakes emerge from murky water,
the same green as your eyes.

a hiss wobbles through your tar-bones
and your flesh boils to scales.
a fat, emerald python.
eating me whole and clean.

your bleach-bowels sear me.
a hapless, cocooned boy for a devil.
the teenage smile is what beguiled me,
tricked me into your drunken youth.

Two strangers in a rickshaw in Varanasi:
Two strangers who never felt like strangers.
Two people lost and alive in the moment,
The same moment
With every sense standing, antennae bristling..

Two in a bubble
Together, held apart.

Caught up in a parade and surrounded by shy , smiling faces
Waving modestly at the fair haired strangers,
Laughing
At their surprise and joy.
Knowing that moment's awe
Delighted to share the festival.

Rickety trucks gaudily decorated blare out the tinny music and
High pitched voices distorted by the tannoy add an urgency
To the motion.

Shimmering saris glisten,
So in tune with the  music that trembles with joy.
That joy spills out from the
Scents, the colours, the gleaming grins and the shy waving that marks our welcome,
Till every sense tingles
With life.


And then the sand storm
Swirling and circling the speeding rickshaw
Arrived mysteriously, magically,
Like dry ice in a theatre.

The air now tangible;
Surrounding us like the skin of a bubble
Lifting us out
Of ourselves as the scene comes and goes.

The sand screen clears to reveal
An elephant
A beautiful, smiling elephant
Dressed in splendour
Accompanying us on our magic carpet ride.
Close enough for us to touch his hide.

Bejewelled and glorious
Smiling too
And all is one in that moment
And each looks at the other and feels enchanted and wants the parade to go on forever
Just like this;
With motion
And music
And colour
And smiles
And laughter
And
An elephant.

******* at tickling the ivories,
at inducing the jet buttons
to chortle, say, in a concerto ;
but I do strum and flirt
with those amazing royal,
88 unrepentant loyal
keys for Jupiter and Saturn,
for Mars and Neptune,
making a blank bland tune
for extraterrestrial beings for fun.

On the cosmic moors
the moon's whirling feet
cease for my discordance.
What a slurred entrance
by F in D major!

Only a novice--an amateur.
I'm no magnificent pianist,
O majestic Mercury.

Summon the stars the search
to lead for a supreme virtuoso,
one of  no incongruent ingenuity
like this dilettante--a pseudo
music polymath, counsels Thebe.

A Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach?

Any of the greats scored above, as well
as geniuses like David and Handel.

Impressario fly! Flee thou away
and go get a classic maven.
Otherwise sleep there forever at Erebus,
never dream of waking up in Eden.

Circuitous world stops: strings break off
at the Earth's axis--
the Sun's panels pause

and darkness' movement begins
its own obscure notes to improvise:

apace demented melody
is released,-- bathos of symphony:
tinny wine of concord
settles on the lees of discord.

Asteroids hooting some ***** calls
when into the grand chrysolite chamber--
in her tailor-made blistering gown--
strolls in the coruscating Venus
in the sturdy arm of jaundiced Uranus,
garbed in his glistening stomacher.

Like a ball, all eyes are bouncing
hither and thither, up and down,

googling and ogling,
once more at them leering,

gaping at the irreplaceable paintings of
da Vinci, Picasso, and Van Gogh
cavorting  upon the weightless walls

to the romantic performance of Strauss
in the palace orchestral of Bacchus.

I met a woman
with a trumpet tongue
who played her words on
paper, white as truces.
she told me through my stereo
"we've both had days
where the phoenix didn't rise".

we' have all had days
where the phoenix did not rise.
but thank goodness
my birthday was the first time
I heard your lips part
and saw your teeth spill oceans
of blue blankets across my jellyfish eyes.

I wish everyone understood the irony
of writing love poems to a lesbian,
but my hands never seemed to reach
the ends of my arms
like I want them to.

They always get stuck dancing somewhere
in the middle.
playing a tune only they can sway to
knowing all the steps
bouncing off every syllable
while others let their wrists go limp
as if the puppeteers needed strings
to tune their fiddle
for a happy song
somewhere far far away.

so take my breath again
keep it wherever it is that you keep
the gasps our ears give you
as your words pull the
heartstrings we forgot we had
that we forgot how to play
to wave our wet-noodle fingers and
conduct a life worth living
so full of blatant love
not afraid to make no sense
my chest was an rusty locket
the day before I heard you
and now I am so full of echoes
from it's tiny, timid click.

For Andrea,
you are a sketchbook muse,
something I have to guess at on my
worst days when there are no words
and the rain smells like a swan song
from the sky.

you kept me writing when there
was nothing left to draw
or sing or smell or see anymore.
when there was black smog
between my eardrums pounding out
the dying breath of clouds
you held me through tinny earbuds
and poems I etched in the moss
running over back roads in my mind

so I hope
you find peace
every time you find a microphone
and that someday, I'll play you a tune
which echoes through you,
with a tiny, timid
click
and a full breath
that resuscitates the open blue
until we are both whole beneath it
until, again, we are true.

clutching at pebbles
thrown hard into sky as birds
bitter yolk of unceasing raindrop
ideals personified, then scattered in leaf
a coarse blending of the soul and what is
scream of forgotten swing alone in sunshine
a fear internalized, an unquenched song of watery despair and silence
pacing, pacing, toward and away from a melody that is
as intangible as balloons whispering to decaying stars
fading into nothingness, brief respite, void of sound, emptiness most
profoundly pierced with kaleidoscopic shards of senses and memory;
with music of blueberries, gleefully dropped
into tinny pails overflowing from wistfulness
with touch of unblossomed rosebuds admired,
unyielding like crabapples moist in calloused palms
with smell of tree, unrepentant and unchanging,
yet gnarled and longing, indistinct, uncertain
with taste of wind, speckled purity of truth elusive,
of realization categorized, of wispy but unrelenting passion
with the image of a hope
etched, recessed, scorned, repressed, grasped, suspended in song
the maybe’s and the why’s
the can’t’s and the shouldn’t’s
the have-to’s and the why’s
then slowly fingers defiantly uncurl from stone, in motion unrefined
and quietly, fervently; quietly, fervently, I begin to sing...
a mottled snapshot of my mind.

it is...
amazing,
how easy it is to ****
with the tinny tools of modernity
2 birds 1 shot,
of bird shot
who would have thought,
before thought,
we could create such things
to help us destroy?
in our gut,
in the deep slime
of our bellies, and our pasts
something feels right
something feels whole
when we commit
the act
something drives us
to repeat
the act
of ******
as often
as the act of creation
is this the delicate balance?  
the intricate scales
tipping so slightly
towards one world or the other?
it does not seem “delicate”
when precious flesh
is ripped from bone
by angry claws and teeth
when that which flew
in the heavens
we could only dream were there
lies naked and defiled
on the sullied soil
was it always this easy to reverse the fates?  
was it this easy
when we trod the plains for days
in pursuit of the hairy beasts
when our feral feasts
were by the first fires
and our hands bloodied
and our chins dripping
with the marrow of the fallen?  
was it always this easy?
it matters not
to the 2 birds
killed with 1 shot

I am standing on fire
Latterly .... Dust
On the tinny, thin string of hope..
But here you relate me
To the past?
And My silence ..
Are the words of my heart
Wanting you to know
When patience slays love

I need someone to breathe for me
because between the binder squeezing under the too tight seat belt
and the panic clogging my throat
as I scramble for my glasses
so I can at least see the wreck in front of me,
I cannot breathe on my own.

I get in a car and suddenly everything around me is a threat,
and I can't do anything without second guessing myself,
so breathing isn't really a priority anymore.

Telling someone to breathe will not make them breathe.
Telling me to breathe makes me breathe even less,
because now I have to spit out the words I'm trying
while feeling even more like I can't do anything right.

-

If you want me to keep crying, tell me that everything is okay.
Tell me that I will be okay.
Make me think of a million outcomes.
where I won't be.

When you work in insurance
you don't even have to use your imagination.
I can tell you how many things can go wrong
and how often they actually do.
I am a bad statistic
but I can't calmly transfer myself to claims,
I can't ignore the process that comes after.
Sitting calmly at my desk and playing solitaire
Is not an option anymore.

And now I'm in class learning about
probabilities
and personal finance
and risk management.

Being constantly reminded of your failures
does wonders for your self-confidence.

-

I drove to the endocrinologist a week after my first accident
and as they checked my vital signs
they said my blood pressure was a little high,
and my heart rate was a little high,
and they asked if I was nervous.

I didn't know then if it was excitement or fear.
I still don't.
My heart is still beating too fast.

-

Through forgetting how to live without panicking,
I've in turn forgotten how to do anything else.

My dresser has been standing empty in my room
since the beginning of the month
when I dusted it off and dragged it into the house.
My laundry has piled up
and I still need to buy a three ring binder.
I have boxes sitting in the living room that I need to unpack,
and I've been meaning to go outside and get some sun for years.
I have a mouthguard that I need to start using
so that one day my mouth doesn't close and never open back up again,
and I still haven't talked to my father about
what exactly I'm using his health insurance for.
I had a 150 day snapchat streak with a boy
but that disappeared with one day of panicking under the covers.

Whenever the light turns green
I have to stare at it for a few extra seconds
To make sure I'm not imagining it.

Every time I'm at a stop sign, I look left and right five times, ten times,
And still hold a scream in my stomach whenever I finally move.

I think in the crash my car wasn't the only thing to stop working.
I think I caught on fire that night too.
The circles under my eyes look like ashes, anyway.

-

There is one nice thing about crashing two cars.

It forces on me a sense of invincibility.
I am wrapped in a cape of steel and debt and guilt.
The collar is tight and scratchy and
it's like the tinny voice on the other end of the phone
telling me to breathe
because I literally can't afford not to anymore.
In a way my life is not my own to end anymore.

Besides, I just got a new mattress,
so I guess I should stay alive for another eight to ten years at least.

The country music plays at a low tinny volume
I never much cared for it
But thinking back now I enjoyed it then
From the back seat of a love's family car
Stopping at small town after town
Country meals and light on conversation
Our favorite was finding
everyday treasures of times long past.
How appropriate then as I scour my mind doing the same
thing

“where do we go from here?”
a line that haunts a million songs
like a small, aching insect
creeping in through the cracks in the lyrics
and spreading its wings to infect the expanse
of music that reaches my ears

do you ever feel like there’s a theme to your life?
some familiar collection of words, some thought
that pervades the space around you
and finds body in the world that follows
your every move
some chord, bright or dire or dim
that resounds in the echoes
in the tunnels you pass through
and sings silently after each word you speak
ringing softly beneath your footsteps
colouring the air you exhale

“where do we go from here?”
the first time i heard those six words
i have no idea where i was
or when
but i remember the thought that came to mind as
desolation
and it made my heart hurt
and i was happy
because i now i could prove its existence

“where do we go from here?”
one day i heard those six syllables
as i often did, above me
tinny and abrupt from the speakers
hidden in public places, among the plastic clouds
and spiderwebs
and i, at the precipice
of some great beginning
felt that thought beneath my step
and my soul sang, it breathed in deep
and i was happy
because now i could prove its existence

“where do we go from here?”
one day i found those words
etched into the notes of some electronic
heartbeat or sellout tune
and i, in the middle of a slow tumble
towards the realization of a loss
of a feeling i had worked so hard to find
felt the emptiness between my fingers
and the ground pressing into the soles of my feet
and the ache once again in my mind
and my heart and my soul
and i knew now the existence
of the feeling inspired
by the downturn of that phrase, six words
that speak to us all

“where do we go from here?”
i thought of this line on my own time
and never knew how to use it
until today, aware of a familiar scent
in the air, i sat down
and faced the six words haunting my ears
and embraced their meaning
closed my eyes and breathed in their truth
felt the confusion and desolation and joy
that seeped into my bones the harder i tried
to join myself with the forever aching phrase
that i now know was written
to describe the way i move through this life
and today, as i walked
with false purpose along the real lines of the road
i felt words pressing sharp into my cheeks
and i turned to you but could not let them free
six words, a simple door
into the patterned floor and closed curtains
of my untidy mind
and so i let the sentence be
swallowed it whole, let it sit in my lungs
a while longer
and i still have yet to ask you

“where do we go from here?”
has there ever been an answer to that question?

Several miles beyond, the dark mountain
looms threateningly - mirroring my mood
as we both brood coldly. Snow clouds hold
grip of its peaks and melt in an icy drizzle to the
umber, wind-swept valley below.

Inside this dank motel room with its peeling
walls, my addiction is both hidden and enhanced.
The room's grimy window is closed to the world
by a threadbare curtain which hangs
askew, sealing me inside my drunken cocoon.
I can now lift bottles to my mouth with abandon,
gratefully lacking the contempt of others.

A tinny television mutters a string of profanities
from a corner, and a faucet drips incessantly into
the filthy sink. It all seems to echo into what I
have evolved. I have become as this dead fly,
scraping back and forth along the window sill,  
manipulated by currents of stale air.

_

finally
after days of dark, threatening clouds
and anxious birds tracing signals into the air
and trees waving back at the lightning
while the thunder rolled around this valley-

finally
it rained

the sun fought against the sky and lost,
instead blazing behind the curtain
and turning the sky a dangerous yellow
while the trees accepted the sepia rain
with defeat

i stayed inside and watched their branches
waving lazily back and forth
as if to escape the rain, or maybe
just to dance beneath it, i don't know
but i knew
i didn't feel like dancing

i felt like dancing
when we were alone in an old building
whose walls echoed the tinny swing music
back at us and whose floors were already printed
with the patterns needed to teach you
the basic formation
and we fell out of place a million times
only to fall back in again

if you were here, i'd take you out
into this rain
and dance until the thunder came back
and celebrate the lightning's wrath
and fall out of formation a million times
only to fall back in again

with you, i always feel like dancing

Passing Tweetsie on my way home from work.

In the Food Lion, low-calorie chicken soup
cans under tinny lights.
Sick-green avocados and riding-hood bacon
celebrated the day all your shoes moved in.
Can't we pair those together again?

The blank space on the floor
like a good friend's face seen
without glasses,
washed out.
Frustratingly,
the smell of my own laundry.
mi colada es su colada
Ha!

By the pond, the gazebo we never spent time in
but might have.
The dusk-dark evergreens with delicate lace tips
like spidery lingerie
leggings ripped wide open,
lingering,
recovered from the trash can.

Rainbow polka-dot gift wrap
on my light-blue chest,
flagship of her left-behinds;
A tawny feather earring, the lonely fore-mast
lacking a mate

and

Demure winter-cabin-smile, framed:
green scarf turned seaweed,
the face-down figurehead drowns.

I wonder if the big bang
was a response to god's loneliness

And maybe he sat alone for a long time
half braining ideas
about making things that
might love him

God never said
let there be light
he just put a gun in his mouth and splattered
stars across the wall of the universe

His black hole brain
something like regret
trying to **** all the stars back inside

And I think about the days you tried

But that's not like you kid
Even though you had blood
spilling out a hole in your gut
Bone white shallow breathed

There are still stains on the passenger seat of my car
Which I now call my living room
because I am homeless

And there are no walls that could hold the contents of your head
like jackson ******* bloodspatter
a pretentious painting titled
and homage to the ****** of failure

And you are not our mother
suicide cocktail
no ice

and you are not our father
an Alzheimer's ghost
Haunting a history
we never lived through

You are skinny like water
running down the zylephone of your ribcage
tinny laughter

Asking me questions like
if love is as powerful as they say it is in the movies
then why do people give up sometimes

I'll never give up I said

You asked me if I thought god was mad at you

the doctor chalked up you living
to just luck

and I think of when god made molds of men out of mud
and breathed into them
and the mud men lived
Mud must have felt lucky then

But for us its not luck
we make so much fuss
Just so the world knows
we're alive as ****

Her loud voice echos inside my head
Tears pool spilling off my bed
And her hams can, and laughter fled
As life goes on, shes still dead
Just a rewind video I replay
Before sad sleepy eyes go to bed
Weeping, sleeping,dreaming seeming
Try to find the right words to describe
She was the only one I could find
To stay up and create, art, color, life
A garden to a picture drawn in crown
She was the only one around
Who found what I found
Art is the heart of family
Love and life
She found me, in the darkest nights
She helped me understand
The human struggle, to experience
Complexity, she was her inevitably
Embarrassingly, intoxication in both
***** and personality, fatality being
She never took care, her loud voice
Tinny in her last moments here
Her brave soul
Trembling in fear
Grandma don’t be scared
I'm here
Just like you were
Im here for better or for worse
Her heart beat beat beating
Tell its run its ran its course  
and when its done ill run some more
Grandma my heart beats for you
that's for sure

Countdown to Armageddon precariously hinges
   potential apocalypse outcome, mere smattering days away
if the brazen, fierce-some dragon doth don
   trumps presidential throne -
   ships with whistling  Dixie missiles at bay
will be synchronized with aerial bombardiers
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   to parlay a view to unleash nuclear weapons on cue
destroying a vast swath of flora and fauna,
   and most life forms (inn oh cent), but pay hefty due
to assuage the aggressively cruel, enjoyably
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   growling at his goalie indubitably
   kick *** mindset worse than dengue fever will ensue
a combustible domino effect fueling global horror -
   analogous to kindling tinder logs smoke
   the color - jetblue streaming up fireplace flue
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
witnessing sovereign magnum opus trans
   forming much of animal and plant life into flakes of goo
far scarier than any macabre production
   dreamt up by human frightful scenario and no hero
she ma to rescue self or other from deadly debacle,
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   nor any safe haven such as a cool igloo
forsooth complete annihilation will far surpass
   any prior world war, no one will be spared,
   neither gentile nor Jew
which total mortal kombat, and attendant laying waste
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   organisms livingsocial instantaneously cremated,
   where ashes spread dispersed faster than Kudzu
rendering world wide web fetid, offal, and putrid
   far more noxious than the common loo
yet even this general description falls short to where mew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
tinny sans hardy species (according to Google search);
   such as tardigrade, mummichog, and cockroach
decimating, heaving, leveling, poisoning
   every cubic inch of Earth evincing voluminous vaporization
   extant eradication emphatically nixed, punctuated, and radiated
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   pulverization eviscerating the bowels of mankind,
   where nary a survivor could weather and withstand
   hollowed out no mans land bereft of sustenance or water
   where seeds of white lily when coalescence
   of oblate spheroid birthed, nursed, and weaned new
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
life especially proto **** sapiens
   and subsequent kin grunting with ah and oew
fast tracked primates, yet inherent within genetic coda
   (perhaps poison ingredient bubbled
  within primordial soup) - steeped quantum mechanical pew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
tar nation housing crucible-
   analogous to planetary size mortar and pestle) queue
sans predestination, where rue
brick, dogma, and fealty honoring justice slew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
by paws of one cancerous, fractious and idolatrous Lothario,
   who opened Pandora Box (rigged shut tight) thorough
lee rendered civilization a footnote
   of cosmological history and universal view
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
BUT.... eligible voters can choose alternate
   (Democratic) candidate -
   the majority will exhale a collective gustatory whew
and allow, enable and provide continuance of the human zoo!

I remember the places I used to hide
My feelings locked away
With no one to find the key
Waiting for Mr. Right
But he won’t come
So I’ll settle for Mr. Right Now,
Mr. In the moment,
Mr. Can I take your coat off
Just to see your skin
So I can picture you naked
Full of regret, full of hatred
I do as he wishes
He slips off my coat
Along with my self-respect
My shirt follows and so does my hope
Passion and desire, meaning more than one night.
Now the pants, the bra, the shoes
Like tinny vessels,
A disappearing bruise
And with my last cloth of hope stripped away
My heart and mind meet at that place where they
Know That Mr. Right won’t come. He won’t show.
Because with my self-respect, my hope, it’s gone in the midst
My mind tells my heart that he doesn’t exist

We are artsy lasses with dorky glasses
On spurned kisses with tinny braces
On selfsame faces at lavish places
On kindred spirits in empty spaces

We, we are the bosses
Archi, we are everything I want
We, we are the bosses
Archi, we could be everything they want

I stretch, and stretch
up towards a place where my head is far
further above so
that I cannot hear the jet engine of your words.
I hear my bones creak
with the effort to get
away from the pollution
of your coal train ramming me.
I hear only my body
cracking like spring ice
as I rise, rise -
rise above your noise toxins
that settle like limp and sodden cardboard crowns
worn about your tortured head.
High above your hollow community
above your entitlement park,  
above your tiny-
tinny voice.
I hear it. Your hateful sounds like poultry jibber
so far down in
atmospheres
below.
I laugh to hear your wordless squawl!
I stretch but  now to bend
and see you
beneath my squishy toes.
Bend at the waist
to see who's nipping at my ankles
and I cry a tear of mirth.
A white rapid that
whisks your bitter apple groove
far away.
I stretch you gone.
I stretch you indifferent.
I grow myself pardoned, I grow my self free.

sahn
2/15/15

Ozzy Oz is the Wizard if Oz,
a wee girl told me beacause because!
Over the rainbow and Toe-Toe too!
And the Tinny man wants to play with you.
When you're 2 it's so much fun,
watch it ten times, never be done.
Poor old Mum, poor old Dad,
at least when it's on She will never be sad!

Rain

As I was sitting in the Dark, Contemplating The Chaos
Of The Eternal Path of Wasted Incarnations
A Thunderstorm Raged Echoing the Internal Turmoil
Lightning’s Blazing the Sky of a Scattered Soul

Rain Was Pouring, Tears Of Cumulated Meaningless Lives
Filling Earth With Life and Floodding The Emerald Eyes
Flowing Down in Rivulets Filling a Waterfall of Pearls
Smashing Down on The Cold Marble of The Heart

Dark Heavy Clouds Accumulating Above
Filling The Remaining Open Channel
Blocking The Dim Moon Rays Left
Only Source of The Remaining Of Life

Thunder Raging, Covering the Howling
Of Despair Running Through the Crimson Rivers
Of The Fluid Of My Damnation
Keeping Life Running in a Soulless Body

Lightning Stripping a Dark Sky
Emanating From the Scars
Of The Gloomy Heart
Glowing In a Purple Shard

I Invoke You, Love Of Many Lives
Life Of Many Loves
As You Can Hear Through
Time, Space and Curses

Call Upon Earth To Regain Strength
Call Upon Fire To Be the Once Known Phoenix
Call Upon Water To Open Dimension Doors
Call Upon Air to Learn to Fly Again

Break your Chains and Set You Free
For Mine’s are To Numerous and Heavy
Set Ablaze the Internal Magick
And Walk the Tinny Step to Set Me Free

As By Seeing Your Angelical Face
By Hearing the Musical Spheres of You Smiles
By Feeling The Warmth Of Your Heart
I will, at last, rest in Peace

Warlock

I thought that for once my luck was reversed,
That this time maybe a lovable smile could be painted on my normally pursed lips
too late I realized it was a mistake, happiness wasn’t here to stay, it was a trick, a sick joke
visiting me, only wanting to touch the temple water or my sadness

To see that the ocean was sweeter than my sour tears.
to verify that the light couldn’t reach the dark spot where my mind resides.
To check that I might not be made for happiness or any derived of such complex emotion,
There’s just too many scars, too many cracks

Emotional wounds constantly open and not properly disinfected,
that need little more than words or looks to hurt me with the “remember”
malicious bugs that eat me from the inside, delighting themselves with tinny bites,
tasting the rotting parts of the place where my soul use to be alive.

My heart has already perish, burning all at once and consuming itself on the fire of the moment
Feeling too intensely drove me to an -not even entertaining- insanity, I decided not to feel,
not to trust, not to be here, only physically  I was forced to stay
but emotionally and mentally I was gone, far away,

At least that is what I like to think, believing that a long time before I used to feel,
But I know it might be another lie, inventions of my subconscious mind
trying to make my existence a more bearable experience, since looking back to the “remember”
I can firmly assure that I’ve never enjoyed anything, not once or ever

I was another lost soul, aimlessly wandering with no defined route, not a goal nowhere to go,
I only could follow my train of thought, that firmly abstracted from the original rules
Anything that tried to be implanted on me was wrong, I believed in no trusting anyone
not an author, not a religion, not codes nor social norms. I couldn’t trust no one.

I was -I am- alone, trying to follow my heart,  that hastily died,

Leaving me once again alone, without even having myself as a miserable company,
lacking of wit and humor I was, -I am- not a bright thought passed me by,
I was – I am- surrounded in darkness trying to find a light to turn in
Something to illuminate me and scare the monsters that so fondly bear with me.

I like to believe that everything changed, that I’m strong and I did overcome it
but I’m weak I must admit, and everything is the same,
the faces have disfigured into other strangers, the original names have been lost,
and the surroundings have acquired different shapes and forms,  

But everything is the same, I’m still an unresolved mess, I haven’t changed
no matter where I run and how much I delve and with desperateness I search
I’ll never find my absent souI, I have lost it a long time ago,

a great return, as I predicted,
like a king. With your crown, your laurels,
your broad shoulders and back,
your hands in your pockets, your face
hard-browed and blond as an SS guard.

he is a slave to his masculinity
he has you, he has had you
and still, you’re no necessity

Some sort of resurrection,
less like spring and more like remission.
A disease that I had chased like a rat
deep into my bones, now
creeps back to its hole in my chest.

you’ve seen his big artillery
bombs dropped, missiles flew
and still, you’re no necessity

Like an old rag dinging out of
a player piano. Off-key and tinny,
on an endless loop for the better part of a year.
I know the words to this song,
they go: he wants you not, he needs you not.

he owes you no apology
boys will be boys, it’s what they do.
he is a slave to his masculinity

But I have written him stories.
I have given him children,
a flat with tall windows and sunlight,
I have given us breakfasts and coffees,
funerals and weddings, I have given us.

he gave you one perfect memory
his pale skin in the pre-dawn blue,
but still, you were no necessity

I have taken them away.
Perhaps his room is white, cell-like,
empty walls. With a mattress on the floor,
for the king with his pride and
laurel wreath, no use for memories of me.

*Let me write you the last story
he had you once, and now he’s through
he is a slave to his masculinity
and girl, you’re no necessity

Do you remember?
When we laughed so hard,
That I lost a contact?
That little jig you did started me chuckling,
My snorts got you to join in,
My ribs hurt the next day.

Do you remember?
When I told you that I first loved you,
And you kept me in suspense?
Later on, you told me that you felt the same when I said it,
But was scared that it was too soon for you to vocalize it too,
But to be honest I wanted to tell you on our second date.

Do you remember?
When you first seemed to read my mind,
And told me exactly what was going on in my brain?
I was furious with your father,
And I wanted to snap him in two,
You just looked at me with your hypnotic green eyes,
And told me to breath,
Rubbing my shoulders as you did so.

Do you remember?
That first pregnancy scare,
Where we didn't know what we were going to do?
We were in your car,
Outside that convention we were volunteering at,
And that talk laid the groundwork for what we would eventually have to go through.

Do you remember?
Our first kiss,
Upon that restaurant roof?
Slow dancing to Tyler Childers,
Playing through the tinny speakers of a phone,
On that warm sunny day in June.

In the fall there were two of them. Wild animals, I mean. New driver's licenses of shiny, longways plastic and long limbs that hadn't filled out yet. She was filling out her Freeburg High School T-shirt pretty well he thought. He was taking it off her innocent body in the parking lot. After the lights at the football field shut off and she kept drawing monstrous hearts on the fogged up windows in the back seat of a car it was almost as if she could let it all go. Hardly thinking about him at all as his hand slid under her waistband and she woke up as he was fumbling with a ****** wrapper. How awkward, she thought, to be a teenage boy with a ***** how tragic, not knowing how to handle a latex balloon when you have it. Like the Hindenburg, she thought we're both going to die some day so it might as well be an explosion and I might as well put on a show for it. She could feel his heart beat in his ***** the way that nobody talks about it and she laughed a little at their nakedness and it was tinny in the climate of their hot breath. I love you, she said.

As if it would change anything anyway.