lapse into a swimming pool of calciferous crustaceans alert to the alarm ringing nearby.  what a silly sentence to think twice about writing.  what if they judge my whole existence through that one sentence?  the pottery of the world makes my hand cramp up apparently.  everyone pair up except you -you're too different, we couldn't find a suitable match for you.

                                               sorry,
                                                    management

Post Script: you're receptionist is a colossal *****, you should be very proud!
                                              
                                               Love,
                                                   Amy from Memphis :)

Post Post Script: my daughter baked you some cookies for those things you said about toilet paper and setting the world straight.  thanks sooooooooooo much!!!!!

Post Post Post Script: WE WILL SERVE YOU FOREVER

PPPPS: just a friendly reminder that Monday the 8th we will be having a pizza party to commemorate the launch of Kellen 14 and as such employees are encouraged to wear their genitals on the outside of their body to display their appreciation to the Over Beings.

                                              Many Dawns,
                                                      Kevin from HR

days on a
leash
of culture
and family.

history
hardwired
into your
own code.

heaven is
a mudslide
barreling down
on you.

hell is
the seed of
your health.

break bread
with your
demons
often.

inescapable
loveless years pile on top of
each other like cars,
windowless  
in a derelict lot.

without giving in
to easy despair, he moves
through them as empty
as the wind
blowing through formless sky.

the   view
                            stands beneath
the carousel efforts
to blast through
impregnancy aBLOOM!!!!
(w)ith feral legacies
aligned intimately ornately
     posthumous adulterer
awakens    in               need
       of
****** corrective agency
towards Fenitbow
           and Glightrovee  ab-surd as
qua as qua
asqua aqua qua
a^s is trite melody infer[no]
t a x i     yellowing  each pavement
by truth in yo ' fa ' ' lo ((lo))
    i by horns and turns
in plyable waves arrest
what justice      juices
      freel_y
                          oblig­atory
                                      antecedent
quai noyh thlume
                            ye
           HEaVY

fire in the nighthouse
a lemon in the
fridge

you stand among the
bloodshed , legs in
the forest -
why haven't you
left yet ?

there is no council
to seek , no wise
matriarch , nor a hermit
living deeply - there never
was , it's just you
brother , just you sister

you must find your
own way through

you are lost among
all these copies -
people living their lives
as other people

people following people
following people long dead

what momentum stalls
your true spirit from
moving here ?  what limits
bare their teeth as you approach ?

ra ! ,
you are fury and
wrath and recompense

you are cool green
intellect piercing through
the light of the
stars

you are deeper hues
hidden behind blindness

you are death
reaping life and you
are here now ,
ra !

I remember you.

Head down, trudging onward.
What nobility is there
if you never stop the momentum?
Blindly following dogma.
Hold it up to the light.
Weigh it against your heart.
Can it carry you to paradise?
Does it need your protection?
Has it atrophied your voice?
Tonight,
scale the walls of your city.
Look to the forest.
Follow the red wolf into the night.
Many eyes will you see in that darkness,
many voices will you hear - it
matters not, you must do this.
Reach the broken bell,
shatter your reflections.
Smelt the ore you find there;
refine it.

In the stillness of the forge
every spark is a star.
I wish for you to find this place.
You will need it for every new
form you take.

I remember you.

another page

with words

on it.


     another extraction

     from , spilling

     free.  ashes from


                ritual to the

                dexter , projections

                of intimacy to

                the sinister.


                           this space does

                           not allow

                           anything and yet

                           is open to everything.





a lightning strike



s  l  o  w  e  d



to  the



length



of  a



l  i  f  e  t  i  m  e  ,







happening

behind your eyes.


     the circuit is

     already complete.


but not fate , not

          determined , not

                         catenary.



don't you remember ?




you already let go.

i wrote that drunk
i was trying to bypass
an impasse
lucked out and
circumnavigated the
rabbit
ran into the fox
he stole my color
only to find it again
at first light
and now i nod
to the speed of life
the unceasing turning
of greater and greater
wheels
the lightness of death
as it passes

there's no
circumnavigating
that

here I go,
blundering through another day

trying to show up for my end of
the bargain.

I sit here,
with this pen and this notebook,
and the stuff is
supposed to barrel through me.


it's supposed to shake the debris free.

it's supposed to melt the lock.

it's supposed to blast my cemented mind apart.

it's supposed to summon shadows and make them dance.

it's supposed to swim on the surface of the sun.

it's supposed to show me all the rainbows in the darkness.

it's supposed to shine the silver on all my shredded scraps.

it's supposed to reach through all my ******* and show me:

     emeralds and pearls\teeth and knives\
     blood and glass.

it's supposed to twist the blade and spit in the ****.


but this morning,
it's the big bupkis
     -nada

just the weight
of its silence...



that *******
probably
has the
day off
too.

everything breaks
me.

the eyes
the touch
the soft smile
the body
the kiss
the walk
the hair
the slopes
the ****
the folding into

       -all of it.

they draw me
in and
draw me
out.

take me in
then cast
me out.

and
I keep
coming back

because

I love them-
   all of
   them.



I love them
more for
breaking me
than I do
for loving
me.

every swift
crack at
my heart
released
something,

a little bit
more of
me.

the good parts-
   what might become
   the best parts.

and one day,
everything I am
will be
destroyed again

and I will
emerge

again.


I will crawl
forth from
my belly

on skinned
knees
and
bloodied elbows
with a
perfect
smile on my
face.

growing and
laughing
in the
light.

what are we
even doing?

I can't
promise you
anything

I'm leaving,
I have to
do this

I've never
been on my
own before
and I want to
see if I
can do it

I can't be what
you want
me to be

if it's meant
to be
it's meant
to be

I saw your
doppelgänger
at the bar
last night

it's not
that I don't want
to see you,
it's just that
I don't
have time

I would
say we should
grab a beer
and catch up
but
I'm only in
town for
a little bit
and my family
comes first

you could've
reached out
to me too
you know

you have
my number,
I don't
understand
why you
stopped
talking to me?

to fall
once more
under
the pen
of a failed
poet

do your
knees shake?

does your
spine tingle
when
you
think of me?

                                         . . . do you think of me?

   -  ha!
I'm still running
that
groove deeper
into the ground

it only works
if you want
it too

(it's only
ever been
me that
wanted it)

when you
get drunk
and get
all the attention
from
all those
room temperature
knuckle-draggers,
do you ever
regret
heaving
me back
into the night?

do you ever
think, " I ****** up, he was unlike
                     any man i've ever known, he really cared
                           about me."







no







you don't




I think
it for you

for me

to feel
better about
myself





and you?
well,


you're not alone
somewhere

busy not
writing poetry
about me

"A revolution is afoot!" shouted a young man as he ran past our window.
      When I got to the window to see who he was, or where he was going, I couldn't find him - in fact there was no one in sight.  I poked my head out to see a bit more and was startled by something flying past my face, a small bird. I watched as he darted gracefully from thin branch to thin branch foraging in the light of the new day. Then the little fella launched himself high, high into the sky and I saw it coming down on us - FAST. It was a colossal foot and it crushed our little home.

. . . and finally i
allow the sun to
set on another
failed love
affair

two years too
late ?  or maybe
right on
time . . .

my shell and my
spear - this heart
of mine in its
place of power
again ,
but changed

as an emerald bird
of thunder
frees the water
from its cell
in the
sky

listening to
Father John Misty in
pink
over
pink time

schism-
shifting
into
poppy red

with a pleasing
depth
of shadow
just
within reach
between
them

(while)

our faint
blue
light

speeds

through
the universe
towards
the
ultima Thule

put to rest a thousand
ways
the Rest is a parent
the rest is apparent

sleep now and
forever and the
nebulous drippings gather
to coalesce

render the beams
from blood only

to suffer close up...

my perception explodes
above
below
beyond
within
around
and
not at all

..I am he without

you know, the
weight of this ****
isn't very poetic.

the long days alone
do ******' hurt
sometimes -
guess i'm not as
tough as ol' Hank
or Ernie -
guess i'm still
just one lazy beauty
away from
having the guts
to end it.

jesus, some days
I just want to
crack my head open
to get rid of
these feelings and
voices and imaginings.

I think ,
      "just one girl who truly cares would make it all ok" , but
I know it won't.
in time, they'll leave
me too
and I'll be right back
here suckin' on the
bone.

****, I need something
to begin in me,
something with grit and
indifference and ingenuity
and terrifying passion.

I'm so tired of
these days of chewing
the gravel and flat
echoes ;
     of waiting to die ;
     of waiting to live.

every summer,
there's
dead baby birds
on the
walkway leading
to the
entrance of
my apartment
building.

last summer there
were three, all
pinked skin, just
a few inches
apart
from each other.

the ants
found them
first, scurried all
over them,
devouring
what
they could before
the cat(s) got
to them
at night.

this summer i've
only seen one,
nice and
plump with
plumage. this
morning
it was gone
too though,
nothing but
the pile
of tree seeds
it was on
remains.

they nest there,
in the dryer
exhaust
vents on
each floor.
-drawn there, I
guess, by the
warmth
and lofty protection
from predators.

thing is, they
clog the exhaust
with their nests
and people
complain about
wet clothes.


...warm

and safe from
predators,


but not safe
from one
phone call
to management.

a shake weight table steak
powdered sugar cigarette
break burning in alcohol
and corn flakes

a big ******* cluster-****
of broken noses and carefully
crafted poses posting pictures
of processed hipster's and blisters,
****-stirrers and culture twisters
jockeying for a spot
all melting in the ***

quiz show **** beads and
fleshlight teenage dreams
soaking through entitled
suburban screens choking
on plastic screams

chocolate dipped cancer fingers

city bus exhaust lingers

prescription bottle salvation bringers

and underneath it all the bible
belt girdles the gurgling masses
of glazed diabetes and frosted
faith pooling in the belly of
America

a fat flabby mess of
snake oil boiling
in stomach acid
and pesticide

"welcome, honey! grab a seat
anywhere you'd like --I'll be
right with you!"

folding the sirens of
eternity in on themselves
as this scant hour
rebuilds its stage
over and
over
in the light of my eyes

already there is a perception
of being caught
in a loop - of a lesson
playing out
before a malady
of ignorance

i am free to see it
and i am free
to miss it

it is the long
breath
of the breaching
whale - an exchange
of currents for
the transformation of
sky into
ocean depths

it is
the
hidden union
in transience

recurring
in beautiful
obscurity

I hear people say severely romantic
things to each other.
I see them believe it as
their eyes swell.
I notice their desperate
hooks finding a mark,
any mark.

they begin to construct
a mythos immediately upon
initial mutual affirmation.
they design
every reason why
this 'other' is the only
'other' that
makes sense, that
could ever make
sense.

they enchant themselves
and each other.
they build
an elaborate simulation
together and
promise/doom themselves
to never leave it.
they swear and curse
to feed the pantheon of
gods they created to
rule over them.

they commit themselves
to the
chains of
a shallow love.

but hey what do I know, right?

I'm just
another fool
waiting to get
what he
deserves.

What came forth
     but this,
successful in a
     solitude not
yet understood.  In
     a way he
lays, afraid of
     too many ways
to lay waste
     to his wasteland.

-such a cryptic oversight.

Now, at night
when the pennies
drop his pockets
fill.

"what a terrible thing to waste!", they say

"all in good time."

"one foot in front of the other."

"if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

Oblivion comes with a smile
and a promise.

Now hanging on to
something almost
completely fabricated
in my mind

I'm over you
     -I'm not over you
I don't miss you
     -I miss you

I have to
laugh at myself
or I will
rot from the inside

That ship has sailed
yet
I know there's
still a place
in me for you

Maybe it will
always be there
and
     in the years to come, it will flourish with flora and verdure
     until
          your absent form no longer stands out

          ...in your emptiness
          there is growth,
          wild growth

inverse my talent
to let go and
be what i'm not.

transverse my axle
and you'll find
a kind of heaven
greasing the pole.

what speaks without words
always, a riddle
unto itself.

the tree of life
is laughing exaltations
in polarizing resplendence.

bright bones are
jubilantly marching
ever deeper into the
triumphant unknown.

we are woven with
mystery, riding waves
of inherited momentum
on a sea of uncertainty.

ex mysterium, ad mysterium

and don't forget about
the punchline -

flatline...

~           *light on,
still-frame freeze of black bodied eight-legged life
     clinging to stained acrylic. we stare at each other pretending we're not real
until one of us moves.
                    
it was me.

there is a price to
authenticity that
most people
are not prepared
to pay

the cost
(at least in part)
is:
indifference,
isolation,
rejection, failure,
anxiety, madness,
etc.

it's vicious
strangers and
deadly lovers--
all of them
with spinning
flowers for
eyes as they
dig in: the
elbow, the
heel, the
knife

becoming who
you are demands
that you sacrifice
every inch of
what you
thought you
were to the
eternal flames

it means you're
gonna be hard
on yourself--harder
than anybody else
has ever been
on you

it means you're
gonna think
about killing
yourself
sometimes--you
may even come
close--

and,
make no
mistake, it
will be the
death of you
someday,
but
it will be
the best death
you could've
offered yourself

you will look
back upon
your life with
a cutting
smile and
piercing eyes
knowing that
you stayed
fighting

through every
cheap shot,
backstab, and
bad call

every
knockdown,
defeat, and
sabotage

you kept
coming, no
matter what
life threw at
you:
poverty,
shame,
guilt,
loss,
exile

these things
mean nothing
in the face
of true
becoming

and what
is becoming
if not
annihilation
and that
which remains
after its
totality?

it's obvious,
isn't it?

it certainly
seems
like it

you see
it too,
right?

maybe
i'm imagining it?

it's probably
nothing

but

your head
is upside
down

facing inward
and
laughing at
itself

and there's
a light in
there

that's always
on

just
thought
you should know

the last
vestiges of my
terminal romance
are sputtering out

God is blowing
smoke rings
around my heart

the people that feign
caring talk
about fish
and
the sea

one workday is
followed by
many more
of the same

and the
days off

never
last

i never seem
to get enough
rest
these days
always waking
up
tired

to start coffee,
****,
fix my hair,
sit in bed drinking
the coffee
plumbing the depths
for
ways to get through
another day,
****,

try to remember ways
that worked
before

maybe a quote
or a character
a poem
a song
a memory
an illusion
could even be
another person

but time draws
ever nearer
ever closer
until
at last
that silent cheetah
is sprinting

before i know it
i'm sitting
in my car
turning the key
with whatever
semblance and steel
i finally gathered

-a real live
cubist representation
of my
self
driving to work
at 3:49 a.m.

passing  
three black cats
in
the street
that watch me
carefully,
the glowing night
white-hot
in their eyes


satellites of some
indifferent future

hidden with
the devils
on the horizon

just thinking back
           on
my twenties and cracking
           a
smile for every tree I hollowed
           out
to make room for a new universe.


now,
in my thirties, I laugh at windows
           stacked
on top of Mercury's head as
           Venus covers her mouth and hides again.

a minute too late
or a minute too
early?

solitude in spades;
loneliness laurels.

no avoidance of
the void dance.

shamanism in the
modern age.

the glow of consumerism
fading in and out
like shallow breaths.

the light flickers only
a moment before red
turns to black.

a lifetime arrives
like that.

i counted all the
times you helped
me to see
the uglier angles
of what i
present as myself

i always believed
in the image i
had of you in
my mind.  one
of a goddess
among men - among
apes with smartphones
but , as
i got closer , i
realized that your
face was nothing
like that goddess ,
that you were
just another girl-ape
with a smartphone
trying to be
whatever someone or
something told you
to be

i lost count
i lost faith

you are below
the wind now

delighting in flesh
in dark rooms
that hide your
pain for a few minutes

in love
only in
dreams

it's also
a trust
and without
any deposit
there is no
balance.

don't you dare smile
in the face of the
day.  don't think for
a second that
you are in control
of your feelings.  
see that person ahead?
don't acknowledge them.
head down, eyes forward,
mouth shut, heart
closed.
...good, now you're
getting the hang of
it.  now, accept everyone
else's authority but
your own, amass financial
debt, relieve yourself
with the proper drugs,
find someone under
the same
enchantment as you
and call it love.  
have kids because it's
the next step.  raise them
in your image.
then,

watch them repeat the
same cycles
and as you're dying, have
a flash-thought-
  "did I even notice who I was?  what I wanted for this life?"
and as the thresh
ceases to be held you
light a candle of hope-
your love the spark,
your children the fed flame.
you say,  
     "they will sever the momentum I couldn't, they will
          see it."
-after all they are made
to be better than you,
not simply blind copies.
yet as the kaleidoscopic walls
usher you on you wonder,
     "how many of my ancestors have lit this same vela del lecho
         de muerte?  how many were hoping it was their daughter or
            son?"

the security of tradition and
the risk-reward of novelty
played out across
lineages.  both correct
and incorrect in their
own ways...

which one reaches through
the ages and hums
in
your spine?

break the poem
open like a pomegranate

spill the seeds
squeeze the juice
and
**** the flesh

when we were kids
we played in
mother's garden:
carrots, strawberries,
rhubarb, tomatoes,
plums, raspberries,
cucumbers, pumpkins,
green beans, watermelon,
onions, potatoes
and
a goldfish named Pierre

he died after
my parents
cleaned his tank
and didn't rinse
it properly

done in by soap--
life can be such a
fragile thing sometimes

we buried him
in the garden
and marked his
grave with a
smooth river stone

one summer
we picked a great
big watermelon
from its dirt nap;
heavy as a bowling
ball and green
as a cat's eye

we heaved it onto
the picnic table
and carved it into
smaller
and smaller wedges
until each one
of us was holding
our very own
chunk of melon

everyone dug in
after admiring their
piece for a moment;
eating it with
their eyes
before their
mouths

but as I went
to bite into mine
I noticed a seed
in the way

so I peeled
at it to free it
and as I fingered
the dripping flesh
of the fruit
the 'seed' revealed
itself to be
not a seed at all

but the eye
of a goldfish
staring back at me
lodged in the melon
in its death throws
gasping for
breath in the
open air

its mouth opening
and closing like
it had a secret
to tell

I stood there
in stupefaction
when suddenly
it slipped free of
its womb
and landed in the grass
behind me

but when I
turned around
to retrieve it
I couldn't find it

there was no goldfish
anywhere in that yard
I checked under
my feet
under the picnic table--
under other people's
feet--nothing

"what are you
looking for?" someone
asked

"nothing," I said,
because who
would've believed it
anyway?--I'm not
even sure if I did--
"just thought I dropped
something."

I stood back up
feeling different
about the world--
like the mystery
ran deeper than any
of us realize--
looked at
my hunk of fruit
and discovered
I wasn't hungry
anymore

so I put
it down on
the picnic table
and walked over
to Pierre's grave

there, underneath
that river stone,
was a watermelon seed
just beginning to
sprout

I smiled in
bewilderment
and gently covered
it with fresh soil
moving the stone
a few centimeters
off the sprouting seed

'Pierre, the watermelon
fish,' I thought--
wiping the dirt
from my hands--

'I wonder what
death has in store
for me?'

It doesn't matter anymore
It doesn't pull at him
It doesn't flatten him
It doesn't even warm his skin just below the surface

He remembers betting the farm
again and
losing
again

He remembers conjuring her image
with another inside her

intense passion
blind lust
temporary bliss
braided into
one
          juxtaposed
by his familiar
personal hell furnished
with a front row
seat to her
exploration of hedonism

ironically, he is busy
exploring asceticism - although
it is with vague
volition, as in
he does not set
an intention thus,
but finds that
his being naturally
collects there
sometimes

Love as an
intoxicant
Love as
ignorance
Love as
withdrawal

In the wake
of attachment
his ribcage breaks
open like grand
french doors into
which the entire
sea pours

The weight of all
that water
on his heart
showing him
the way

my dear fellow human,

you have been wintergreen against my heart. a sharp brilliance of blinding light captivating me within the infinite breadth of a wandering moment. my lungs frosted first freezing figures of frozen firs upon the memory of each breath. my blood ran cold like that winter river and I was a fish beneath its icy exterior and you have been wintergreen against my heart. a cold slap of circulating change penetrating each layer of protection. you have been wintergreen through them all and now you are wintergreen against my heart. a fresh perspective from the core of my being to the scales of my skin. a permeating resolution of piercing glacial coolness frosting the valves and chambers of this brumal beater. you have taken my breath from gelid gilded gills and scattered the shattered pieces of peace across this boreal landscape. from the hiemal heights of arctic aurora aura's to the lower polar valley's suspended in diamond dust--you have been wintergreen among them all and now these roots are too--cool, clear and growing--and i have never been so grateful for the cold that pierced and kissed this wintergreen heart.

~every distance is a long shot
within reach of a fool~
                          Prv. 𝑓:𝑦

bleed your heart out in dripping
poetic pretense―slip
that inky salamander some silk:

         "the wilting waiting flora
bequeathed their busting bouquets and
     bountiful bosoms unto the world
              in all of its prescient
                       violence"

then read it back to yourself
later and be
absolutely disgusted.

throw it away with all the other
things you've done in your
life.

now reach back in your closet
and rattle the skeletons
lingering there.

finger your dreams in the
dark under pressure
from the mind
to find yourself.

the lightning severance
will sing and
anxiety will
harmonize with the knife.

you've done it again...
****** it all up
and everyone
knows it.

you could eat all the erasers
in the world
and your **** still
wouldn't come out correct.

a lifetime of valleys and
seawalls has made you
an avatar of
effortless blunder.

and you can't stop bleeding
all over the page; white
is red again
cause
you blue it.

bleed in―breathe out
breathe in―bleed out
bleed in―breathe out
breathe in―
bleed out...

welcome to the creative
process.