Last night my mom and dad got into a fight
Because my dad wanted to watch fights on the DVR
And drink beer in the basement all night!
My mom asked him to watch TV with us
And watch his fights later
But he was mean
And he said no.
So my mom said
"You might as well sleep down in the basement tonight too"
My mom says my dad is so selfish,
And he always leaves things where they don't belong,
And he tells silly jokes, and doesn't like to do dishes.

But, I woke up in the morning, to the smell of crispy salty bacon,
And brewing coffee.
I went to the kitchen
And my dad was cooking eggs, bacon and pancakes
And he was chopping up fruit salad.
The only meal my dad cooks better than my mom is breakfast
And my mom says he's the only man that a can cook her bacon, just right.
I helped my dad put the eggs, with yummy gruyer cheese, and black pepper,
And a little cup of ketchup on the side
Because my mom doesn't like it on the plate,
On the breakfast tray.
And I snuck a piece of bacon, when I put that on the plate,
And the pancake plate with butter and sticky syrup
And then the fruit salad mixed with yogurt.
Then we brought it into the room, and my mom
Went from mad to smiling when she smelled the bacon.
She kissed my dad when he gave her the tray
And said "Don't think your off the hook, Russ."
And my dad did his sorry puppy impression.
"But" my mom said,
I forgive you."

We left her to eat her breakfast,
And as me and dad went to wash the dishes
He said
"Remember, Alice..breakfast in bed fixes almost anything...
Until you ***** up again, and then...there's always chocolates"

I again glimpse of eternity.

I saunter where the shadows stain the streets.
I linger where my essence is silhouetted in the moonlight,
or beamed under a street light,
                                               or doused in headlights.

I loiter with friends in parking lots of frozen yogurt shops
in a small town--
listing torpid quadrupeds,
whose shells glisten and dazzle in the myriad of lights,
scrolling down the boulevard.

I find myself behind the wheel,
grazing among pavement pastures,
hungrily consuming the open road
on a silent night,                         in the still air.

          Night makes everything seem to go on forever.

From the speakers I hear the sizzle of ancient synthesizers
envelop the interjections of pulsating snare drum
slaps and snaps, cracks and claps.
          Hypnotized, I hit cruise control and drift ceaselessly.

At home, face illuminated in the television's glare,
my body buried under the weight of scattered sheets,
staggering dreams, snacks and drinks,
          my eyes burn steady into the void.

The television, likewise, burns into me,
as I ingest films that depict time travel in all its ambiguity.
I rip through the portal, feeling simultaneously
expeditious and sluggish.
          Did I stop time with breakneck speed,
or did I freeze like a river in the winter solstice?

Either way, I now stand outside the confines of mortality.

There's the sands of perception (identity)
muddied by the breaking waves of time,
where my sunken footprints
appear
and
disappear.

Relinquishing the captain's chair,
my mind fills with lucid dreams,
          from the TV screen.
Surely I know this is not reality,
but I cannot help it--
I am an accomplice in these chronographic schemes.

Though I appear in control, or at least aware,
I surrender my earthly duties to the conductor of time,
or its deviant: The Vexer.

The Vexer, the mischievous time traveler,
who dances between the dimensions,
with black holes for ears,
the speed of sound for a voice,
the speed of light for eyes--
it is the pestering worm digging throughout the galactic space apple.

The Vexer, who has wrenched me from my mortal footing,
to cast me adrift among uncharted seas,
with gloomy waters murky but heavenly
in its dark and rich violet glow,
like fires that burn hot hot on the color spectrum.
          A color less seen and therefore depicted as serene,
but all the more potent in its mystery.

The Vexer, with a wink of its cataclysmal eye,
grabs me by the wrist and tears me across the night sky--
I stretch thin between the television lines,
the endless roads and the mystic synthesizers,
peering through the night sky,
where human senses dull and the mind wanders--
          I have found myself in the Twilight Zone.

I am bound for eternity, ****** through the
tunnel vision telescope of man,
refracted as I bounce among the mirrors within,
expounded among the stars and the space between,
exploding in a brilliance in the vastness of its bliss.

The youthful laughter that ejects from the parking lots
of frozen yogurt shops,
the night drives with eyes that gloss over as it peers into oblivion,
dulled human senses that leave room for the mind to ponder,
the television screen that burns steadily into the mind,
the Vexer who oversees the mind's pondering of night life,
who like the court's jongleur skips and leaps
around the immensity of time's preponderance--  

Feigning insomnia to reap the benefits of illumination
in the infinitesimal night hour,
in these lingering hours that warp around somber hands
frozen on the midnight clock,
where thoughts of poetry flow and still bodies collect dew,
          the proximity of night life as it pertains to time travel:

The two are entwined.

The top of my head is open
My scalp lays on the floor beside me
It is open to the world
Every germ and every human
(if they are any different)
But the gods drilled the holes in the tops of my skill
To sip from my moods and my thoughts
as they went on tropical vacations
They cut me open to find me empty
And to fill me again
They shaved out the insides of my skull
So they could sprinkle it onto their yogurt with granola
And they left me to dry
But I awoke with an ache of ruin in the back of my neck
I went about my daily life
I bought groceries
I met with friends
I chatted about politics
But I couldnt help but feel a bit empty
I took Advil to calm the pounding of my head
It could not be avoided
Until the day I looked up
My brain was gone
And the top of my head was left open
And all I had now was the rest of the world filling it in.
I did not need a brain.