She said it again,
So I repeated myself too,
This time with the

"What"

In "What did you say?"

With the strongest
Emphasis
I could muster.

She's saying it again,
And I still have no clue
Why she would **** in
Like Colonel Custer
Did to the Indians.

I bid her adieu,
And left her to wonder
What my answer could've been
If she didn't adjust her
Opinions based on
Her audience.

But anyway....
The fraudulents
Won't go away.

They hide behind me,
Trying to scam me,
Like I'd just walk blindly
Into a ****
Double whammy
Or something.

That thumping.
That thumping.

It's chronic,
And constantly bumping
Against this cage.

My patience is thinning
With each year I age,
Leaving me feeling
Like Greenland.

Is it so much to ask
For new beginnings?

A different page?

Anything other than
Feeling the same?

I suppose that it is,
And I just have to accept
That I'm asleep in a grave,
And all that I see,
All that I feel,
All that I know
Are all that's left.
The last static spasms
Of a decomposing mind.

I saw my sister today,
We got lunch at Union Station.
It's been years,
So I noticed the changes
In how she looks,
How she acts,
How she reacts to my
Shortcomings as a brother.

I told her to think of
Everyone she knows,
Or has known,
Or will know,
Or has seen
In person.

On a screen.

In a picture.

From a moving car.

In a dream.

I told her to think of all these people
Who have lives, and credit cards, and vacations, and stressors, and morning showers.
I told her they're all dead.
They are gone, forever,
And never coming back.

Worm food.

Spirits.

Contradictions.

I told her we are all dead,
And our imagined lives
Are just contrived efforts
To reconcile that truth
With ourselves.

All this empty time,
The moments that
Happen over and over
Every day
That we cannot pin down
Or really remember,
Except when they're happening,

Like walking up the escalator
From the subway,

Or making some *******
A ****** sandwich at work,

Or eating breakfast,

Or riding the elevator
Up to your floor,

Or taking a ****,

Or feeding the cat,

All these moments that happen so frequently and uneventfully
That it's as if they don't happen at all,
They're just static electricity
Discharging in a rotting brain.

Last ditch efforts to maintain
A sense of order,
A coping mechanism for the
Emptiness where God should be,
Filler to hide the reality
That nothing is happening,
That nothing is reality.

I told her we can
Fill that space with
Whatever we want,
That death is what you make it,
It's your death to live,
Your own make-believe
Joys and sorrows.

With a furrowed brow,
She didn't say anything
Until she asked for the check,
And said she had a bus to catch.

I said good luck with the baby,
I'll babysit when it's born,
If you want me to.

We cannot escape. Black smoke fills the hotel. Twenty three are dead.
Two days pass. The smoke has coalesced into a flesh-like sludge. One of the bellboys trips on floor 17 and is coated. He screams and screams and screams. We barricade the entrance to the floor.

Ten days pass, uneventfully.

I feel safe now. The sludge has moved away from my room. The lawman tells me the end will come soon. He gives me a hotel mint.

I sometimes hear the whispers of that poor bellboy, vibrating through the wooden belly of this geometric construct. He tells me he is fine, and he is happy.

A maid throws herself out of a window. I cannot fathom why. We are so near.

The bellboy tells me how his life was once filled with meaning. Motivation that drove him, ideals that enticed him, and responsibility that crushed him. He is nothing now. He is free.

We open the door to floor 17. I see

it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is moving it is lies there torn like tar stretched across ****** gills there is starlight in the gape of his throat pitch in his dead dull eyes father passes me a cup and I drink his blood father passes me bread and I feast on his flesh father

Philadelphia is a sweltering 70 degrees today! Whew! I think I’ll go to that cute coffee shop across the street, and try one of those new pumpkin lattes.

The new bus system *****! How is anyone suppose to get anywhere on time? Grr!

These muffins are so adorable I just want to throw up!!!

The park was especially lovely this evening. The flowers were in bloom, and this one little girl just kept sniffing them and sneezing and sneezing until she couldn’t breathe and was driven away in an ambulance.

Red blue red blue, they taped off the block today. Pipes burst beneath the road, a bus overturned and the streets flooded with bodies.

little faces pressed against the pavement little faces pressed flat little faces pressed like flowers flat flat flat flat a poem

don’t make me remember please stop

There’s a dead deer’s head in the foyer above reception. The rest must have rotted. They cut away the animal and left only the carcass, the severed space. Our bodies contain us, they are a boundary, and when we tear at the surface we open up and flood the world with emptiness, or perhaps the world floods us. I think that deer burst and they hung its face on the wall to remind us that this hotel is filled with emptiness, and that death will bring only more emptiness. Maybe we’re meant to connect like shaking hands and football and insider trading fill ourselves with foreign emptiness distract retreat like shaking hands always nervous smiling and empty.

I am not here I have never been here go away I was someone but not anymore

These muffins are disgusting they fill the insides with cream and jam and fruit and it is sick and false no one can escape this pointless stupid life go fill yourself with things filled with other things doesn’t change you are a void pulling in everything light itself devourer spinster

Today was one of the best days of my life.

Today was one of the best days of my life.

Today was one of the best days of my life.

Today was

The lawman tells me I have slept for six months. I ask him about that day on floor 17. He tells me there is no floor 17.

We have run out of hotel mints.

There is a gap. There is a gap in my perception. There is a blackness constricting the edges of my vision.

There never was a bellboy. There never was any smoke. The maid is alive. She is alive. I can touch her. She is alive.

We sit in the cafeteria. She pours me bitter black tea, her arm arching in such a manner that would not be possible were she in that twisted ****** state on the day of her suicide. We share this moment every day for a week.

I have begun noticing small grains at the bottom of my cup.

Today I feigned sickness and took the tea to my room. It burns my skin but I do not react. It is as I expected. I am drifting out of my flesh and I cannot stop.

THIS IS NOT THE SAME HOTEL. THIS IS NOT MY BODY. I AM SURROUNDED BY LIARS.

I am going to find the bellboy.

The elevator button is covered by layers of coarse black tape. I tear it away and find plaster beneath. I drive my keys in. The plaster crumbles between my fingers, revealing the bent end of a naked wire. I scream and scream and scream. I am utterly alone, suspended above the earth on a carcass of withered cellulose. The tips of my flesh quiver and the irregular geometric forms of my keys fall to the ground. They are hugged by the synthetic strands of millennia dead creatures. It is carpet, a small voice whispers beneath my skull. What does that even mean? I fall to my knees. I hear gurgling static above. Someone has turned a faucet, fully expecting water to flow out of it, as if it is perfectly ******* normal for water to flow two hundred metres into the air. There is a rasping sound and I realise it is my own throat opening for air.

I don’t want to exist in this reality, anymore.

Two weeks pass. I have collected enough dregs. I will soak them in mouth wash tonight.

The smoke fills my lungs. I hold it until my chest caves, my vision blurs. Grey streams rise from my lips, sinking into the ceiling. A siren screams in the hallway. I hear the lawman at my door. His head smashes against it, screaming, screaming, until it shatters into shell and yolk. I cannot wait to meet my child.

it is a womb alive twisting free empty stupid vessels floating blood in our casings waiting on the carcass spitting my lungs bring me my child bright death bright life

We shift bones to shift words to shift bones. Nobody died but there are twenty six corpses; his flesh fell through his frame, her bones shattered like shrapnel like atomic starlight, his head burst into prismatic decay. I watch their flesh pulled into the womb below. The hallways are umbilical cords pulsing nutrient streams gaping softly breathing burning. I know now. This intersection between life and death. It has always been. It takes in the lacuna. The space between spaces. Human shaped vessels with ill-fitted souls. You cannot tell them apart, you know. Strip the skin away they are revealed formless. They sink into bodies but never form identities. It is this place between places, where transience precipitates like breath on glass, dewdrops spun. I know I know I know the lawman rolls his head side to side blood and brains across the floor shut up.

There, in the hollow of my skull, I am dead, a fleeting absence. I hug the womb beneath me. I drag the rotting parts of myself down. I leave my head beside the lawman. I am going to be with my child. I am going to kiss my bright death into its soul, an indelible beacon to blemish the emptiness of existence.

A searing desert will bear no life
With the raging fires of each day
And the poisons of the moving night
Will maim all that dare to stay

The little life that takes hold is hard
Unforgiving to the passing eye
The treasures inside fiercely guarded
By designs meant to hurt, to ****, to die

Time will pass uneventfully,
As brave souls dare to cross
Meeting with mortality
Finding sadness, keeping loss

But as swiftly as the desert claims life
The heavy rains begin to fall
Softening the sun baked earth
And strengthening the haunting call

Those that have watched
Each life be taken
Will sit in silence
As the earth is shaken

A lone stranger appears
Stepping light, touch soft
He sings to the desert
That appears still, and aloft

He carries no troubles
And gives all that he has
For he wants no trouble
Only to pass

As the man sings on,
And things peer from their holes
The desert is teeming
With lost and found souls

The rain and the song
Have brought forth an end
To the pain and the suffering
And has started to mend

The desert once more
Forgives and forgets
Gives life and joy
And pays back its debts

A lone man
And a rainy day
Returns the happiness
To the cold and grey

A hazy mildew hung over the morning
The sky, ever since they fell all was putrid
Nothing was as I remember. I think of
The days before ideal thoughts melted.
Now all is shadows upon sights gaze.

But then hours of thawed ideas diminished
To what is this moment now. How could
All have fell to this un-concentrated moment
As we all feel in to disarray. Not a condensed
Sense but mayhem on a global scale.

One domino is a moment where we would
Stand or fall in perfect symmetry, one after
Another we stagnated to oblivion. How could
We let this become our legacy of what we had
Done, become. now scurrying on a sinking ship.

But some would not go down we would hold the
Tide before the surge, never letting even a wave
Break over us. For to let this overtake would be
Our eventual downfall. Humanities last thread of
Civilisation would descend in to  extinctions grasp.

But we were the once time blessed, I don't believe
In all that crap, but I was here for a reason. Lets leave
It at that stale mate. No matter what others say to that
Much argued fact. we are a echo of the past fact, but
We moved on never looking, pondering are way back.

I get dizzy thinking of the past thoughts and blame as
this hazy mildew hung over ever moment I was alone.
I spiralled in to unknown dreams of that place I descended
Into this place I find myself. This infinite moment of
What could have been and uneventfully changed.

I walked upon the overgrown fauna as it grasped
For attention from my ****** movements, but it
Was an inanimate passing that didn't regurgitate
A constructive second thought. Could I let this
Be my final curtain. never I had to much to lose.

Dam the stupidity of the many to uphold all
Thought upon a single individual. A lapse in
Even a moment conjoined to this single sentence
That blurted in a thousand moments all at once.

"I don't want to die I have so much to live for,

Words are meaningless when no one is listening
And we wondered the landscape. it was a single
sentence "Am I all that is alone in this world,
Surrounded by others blindness of thought.

We wondered as one but we were singular, each
A moment conspiring to thoughts of I will survive
I will be the one standing, when all others fall.
A hazy mildew hung over the morning sky.

there is all this build-up
for those who struggle with the dark
demons that nag at your soul

often the wave
of depression peaks and crashes
uneventfully and unknown to the world

but sometimes
the soul is overwhelmed
and the dark we battle claims another life.

The peaceful passing of my soul in silence is what this moment appears to be.Beneath my skin unravels a tale much the opposite.
There the silence is perforated by the echo of my hopelessness.
I am confronted by the possibility that I am losing it.
Not my sanity (though perhaps that is a subject for a different passage).That I am losing my talent.That I am losing my muse.
That the habit upon which i construct nearly my entire identity now threatens evanescence. And here I am, only halfway convinced that these keystrokes are self refuting.They are not devoid of talent. But they do not come in the same feverish manner.
They do not come in unbridled passion
They are beforehand constructed.
They are not solid images or stories, but some vague outlines of more vague impressions.
They are not paintings of the broad colorful strokes of emotions
They feel almost - not quite- cold.
And they feel calculated.
Perhaps i have been guilty of overanalyzation
It is likely.
But also, I am keenly aware that my creation is much more an act of choice these days.
It is much more an act of choice than spontaneity.
I am not taken with the wind, or the trees.
My soul does not overflow, it simply bubbles uneventfully.
I find that when i look for inspiration, it is not there.
I find that I can write about everything equally and subjectively.
I have beliefs, I have passions, yes,but somehow they do not control me.
And I am so used to being controlled.
I have before thought that there was freedom there, or more accuately, i have felt it.
And still that emotion underlies the thoughts that i now have.
It feels as if i am devoid of what i have before held deeply central to my talent as a poet.
But perhaps, this is simply a new era.
It has long been argued and discussed what sort of poetry has value, what sort of poetry is poetry - and i would posit that the answer is all of it.
There is value in the vivid pictures of emotions.
And there is value in the eloquent preservation of the facts of a situation.
Everything between on the vivid spectrum, may in some way be classified as poetry,
and is in some way inherently valuable.
I am not free.
But Neither am I bound.
This is why I am without direction.

Writhing with anxiety,
He hesitantly walked ahead,
He equivocally looked beyond his nose,
Whimpers of tired sobs,
Followed him to the door,
‘Please, please,’ her tired voice begged,
‘Do everything you can’

Everything I have done thus far,
He thought,
Is the best I can,
But still,
He never blocked the ray of hope,
In her path of darkness,
As he moved to and fro,

Time flew by fast,
Any glimpse of a break through,
Uneventfully shut in his face,
With nowhere to turn,
He remembered gentle words seldom heard,
As in entranced, he listened carefully,
Guilt of sins past imbued him,
But strutted on with faith,

He desperately made his plea,
‘If you will do just this one thing for me,
I promise…’
But now,
Everything is back to ‘normal’,
The desperate times past,
Promises made broken, again.

You enter the mix
Uneventfully
Just there, one day
And it felt you had always been
No waves or even ripples
Just a gentle warming of the waters
And then you were there
Water becomes playful
And quenching
And
Absolutely Necessary

It goes back histories ago, you’ve heard the stories.
Humans, born as a giant beast, uneventfully split as punishment.
That split soul became the humans we are now, two halves separate.
The story goes, life after life, their kind would search endlessly for the other half.
Destined to never unite, destined to feel incomplete for all eternity.

Our soul doomed to search endlessly until the end of time, but I know fate is in our favor, benign

If I can’t be with the rest of my sole, then I’d rather be left a hole

Their love is more than adequate, it’s a feeling that never quits

I thought I found you some time ago, but it was a selfish soul with an ego

I guess I’ll continue my search, I don’t think I can survive much longer without your perch

Thought I found you again later in my journey, but I was just a slave to a sick wretched tourney

I use to look up to the stars at night, ponder, are you too thinking of holding me tight?

No matter how much time it’s been, I will feel the same for you as I did then

It’s the way our spirit makes me feel, full enough I don’t ever need another meal

Our spiritual bond will not be forgot, we are intertwined together as a knot

I will never again let this curse leave me detain, I fight with love, not distain

Until finally, through my search I found you, without using any of my senses, I knew. you did too

I know you’ll never leave us again, our journey together has just began

I know our pain may hurt, but we’ll always rise stronger no matter how hard we hit the dirt

I’m more than jovial our souls were united, life was so hard while we were divided

I felt what you felt when we were apart, we knew something was wrong from the start

Those happy days I felt so much pain, I could feel you fighting just to keep sane

The things we’d do to one another, it would leave blood covered on each other

I searched for you my whole life, if I’m lucky enough one day I’ll call you my wife

No matter the weather, nor life as rough as leather, or as dark as the nether, as long as we are together our soul will not tether

Eyes that woke spoke nothing of the day that lay before me
and the night had passed quite evenly or even uneventfully

it was playing with the lucifers that lit me to the hour when I saw the orange blossom of this match with all its power.

Of course the fire consumed me,
the fire that eyes could never see
something smoking deep inside me
which the lucifer set free.

Good Friday and some say why good?
it starts as any Friday would
with coffee and a cigarette and yet
I feel there's somewhat more than this ,
somewhat more?,

what did I miss?

I’d like to think that this ends
much like a dying star.
That it burns and boils with fury and passion
until one day it implodes into itself,
in a beautiful spectacle of cosmic mourning.

But there’s a feeling in my soul
a quiet, dreadful haunting
that this dies uneventfully.
Like the anticlimactic withering of the last flowers before the frost.
That one day
we just realize it’s been awhile,
but neither one of us really has anything to say.
And the final petals fall
without anyone really noticing
at all.

Outward slovenly appearance bespeaks volumes
wordsworth their weight in gold
(exhumed from the pith
of these lovely bones -
beclothed with mottled skin)
presages afterlife of hellish horror
(think Dante's inferno),
nevertheless a respite from earthly torture
wracking mein kampf since conception.

I lived without great expectations
diploid on an impossible mission
set in motion courtesy
triggered pleasure zones,
when natural propensity toward mortality
yielded mutual intense
or paroxysmal excitement
after unbridled love making
between then young parents of mine
approximately circa early/mid April
nineteen hundred and fifty eight.

Begot upon initial cleavage of two gametes
genetic fate decreed upon yours truly,
when nine months later a scrawny boy
traversed thru the birth canal uneventfully
into the hands of waiting obstetrician.

Mother placed me near her *****,
where I busted thru ample cleavage
nursed courtesy milk of human kindness
until she became high and dry
pacified scraggly baby,
who screamed at the top of his little lungs
possibly linked to submucous palate
split uvula - diagnosed years later
by specialist at Lancaster Cleft palate clinic.

Severe nasality as Aladdin in grade school
linkedin with extreme introvertedness
grist for the role as scapegoat
bully me pronounced
major inferiority complex prevailed.

Suicidal ideation throve
as unhealthy psychological bumper crop:
I cared not a whit for mine body, mind, and soul
negligent hygienic habits - unkempt appearance
abhorred cleanliness, greaseball outlier
videlicet witnessed infrequent visits
to bathing or showering facilities
let hair grow long and ratty, and shaggy
passive aggressive stance
toward family of origin members
sought refuge in mine bedroom
remained metaphorically hermetically sealed
until emerging adulthood
entrenched, fixated, and glued
to aforementioned behavioral traits.

Challenged, piqued, and
tested and tried patience of parents
passed their threshold of tolerance.

Overstayed welcome at 324 Level Road
at the receiving end of hollow ultimatums
browbeaten courtesy damning epithets
fueled glowering hatred, issuing kickass
brickbats, out the mouths of mommy dearest or
papa, silently internalized their vicious wrath.

Smoldering rage within me tamped down
as brilliant comeuppance
did not visit mother on her deathbed,
nevertheless wept profusely
while wailing "I love you" over the telephone,
and every May fourth -
since two thousand and five
crafted commemorative poems,
she always asked
for written acknowledgement
at the least remembering her birthday -
November thirteenth -
from second born and singular son.

No escape from
being called oppressive scatological names,
neither at home nor at school,
and including riding the bus
brutal, short and nasty invectives
assaulted my sensitive eardrums
of course with futility
impossible mission to deflect
blacked banal barbs,
whether besieging me

from so called wonderful,
albeit infuriated parents
continually wounding mine ego,
which pride of self never robust
subsequently such regular
(unleaded) cruelty outsourced to every ogre
witnessed an aggrieved boy
silently pained courtesy
whiplash of words accosting consciousness
submissively accepting battering

haranguing, poisoning, stinging
standing stockstill
forbearance vetting psyche,
the tragedy exhibited
by stoic facade and charade
generating absolute zero responsiveness
from an introverted
anxiety plagued youngster,
who grew up emotionally,
physically and spiritually stunted
scratching out pathetic poetry.