each day lasts forever.but the weeks are forcibly torn out.crumpled into the void like unwanted notebook pages-the years are the most frightening-just to slide by them.folded over like the rolled edge of a dull pocketknife. imprecisely honed. imperfectly lived. [memoirs of a boy scout drop out]there's something suffering (in the way you do those things) stumbling into the musky, razor-blade winters of jack london's finest fantasies.like a ghost seen walking in circles around the perfect spaces in-between the empty moments of gentle speech.mumbling softly over the warm murmurs of crackling embers delicately pacing distance between themselves(so as not to burn so quickly.)the hot tangy slurs of blood dripping from downward facing fingertips.teeth gnashed together, translucent grey flint-wheel sparks springing from the shadows-flaring nostrils coupled with rapidly expanding lungs.breathing in the ferrous red-a single hammerfallpulsation. arms interacting with the bitter indifference of the cold that snaps open the veins throbbing wildly in clumsy hands-letting the animal spirits trickle out unrhythmically-into jackson ******* droplets.
onto the pristine snow.

Three climb the hill behind the house:
my master with the yearling cow and
me. The dawn-light
glinting sidelong off the heifer's glossy
hide is a memory of the morning star
reflecting its own shadow. As we
walk out past the fence gate posts
into the winter pasture (now in bloom), the gray
grass swells in the fickle breeze.
I hear the sea swells move across the grain
and splash against my side unrhythmically.

The man, who walks with purpose in his stride,
holds limply wood and steel there at his side
or shifts the load to point into the sky.
The quiet beast, chewing, climbs the hill
from sunrise-side toward its falling down.
I guess she thinks this Eden, (this meadowland
unspoiled) and she the sole inheritor
of a paradise of grain.

But here where we can see the earth
stretch out beyond itself, we pause and tie
the yearling cow to some eternal oak.
The dawn-light in crescendo
echoes off her onyx hide. A crimson sky
offsets a gem of silver on the rise. Now
wood and steel rise coldly through
the chilled mid-morning air. Chewing she
stares down at me her sombre bovine stare.
He raises up his single arm and heavily exhales.
Her stare now without object falls
beside the hallowed tree in rippling
peals of thunder that vibrate
through the dew. She lies where she
belongs upon the earth, black
hide and life-blood mingle with the dirt.

Now two descend the hill into the yard.
My master's path is to the barn
to finish what's been done while I
wrack my mind for how
she might have sinned.
I don't think I will climb that hill again.
I don't think I will climb that hill again...

They called me a punk, a ******* ******,
an inconsequential gay man drifting in the harshest
light of the night, a swirl of hard, sunbaked
asphalt on my rough, pungent skin, dark, *****
consonants crushing my heart, unforgiving
diction twirling in my sore, stinging throat.

I did not know what could possess them
to break my vessel into a million, meaningless
fragments, a thinning gray vowel spiraling
into weather-beaten trees and leaves,
leaving me out of sync with my existence,
feeling like my limbs were struck by an ax,
embracing the scarlet blood as it covered
my metal and mangled flesh.

Look at my withered, yellowish presence,
a miserable, hideous sea of sleepless depictions,
a sweltering star, a shrinking moon disappearing
too soon, an inanimate object, a directionless
derivative, an insignificant horizon unable
to shimmer, a flooded dimension transforming
into nothingness, into a black sinkhole of desolation.

I felt like I was dying, a diminishing afterthought
drifting away into hazy spaceships, all blackened
and ceasing to rise again, the silence around me
a disturbing scene stripping away my serenity
as I slipped into somberness, feeling the endless
bead of tears stream down my raw-swollen face,
such trembling emotions, such drenched moments
making me feel not so strong as everything seemed
to turn into a broken blur, an unrhythmically depth
of terrible regrets, breaking me down piece by piece.