Water flows
into crevices, down
slopes,

and once stagnant
in a pool that breeds
mosquitoes and algae,
it rises and floats
above houses
and over crags

without ever
following
the strenuous path.

Three months is not long to live

You say that you have a limit
that will soon arrive, and that
it is alterable, but
you change nothing,

your words are smacks
of bubbles in a bog
that pop, and though they rise
from beats deep at the core
the pool smothers the throbs
and make each
more quiet.

When you ask me to pray
at your bedside,
I will not. You slurred
at mine. When you die

I will laugh at how absurd
it is that I feel like a piece
of me slips in liquid nitrogen,
like a liver or
a fist or
an entire cluster
of neurons ready
to store better memories,

yet  that your image
still survives as an eternal
croak that sounds
from the stains
of your swamp water.

Upon scaling front-country hills

I register depth
when I see distance,
but no profundity floats
between my eyes
and the sun-burnt valley.

My throat is loose
and my veins drum
like an epileptic fishnet
as they entangle thoughts--

fluid bends light
and even when clear,
contains inert
taste,

but each step
heats flesh
and constricts the net
until thoughts suffocate
in its embrace.

At the summit
the back country peaks howl;
the net seizes
and silence rises.

For a moment
the hills distill me.

He grew tired of listening

I coat my mouth
with the tingles of vinegar
and sea salt phrases.

Reflections choke the larynx,
and though lukewarm water
will relax the tension,
it is tepid.

I spent last night floating
in a creek, and my skin
was crisp, my mind
swimming downstream
like a disentangled
intestine: I must flay

my tongue and mount
a peak that looks
to the sea,

exhale
until it rains,

and wet
someone's Crab Benedict
so that it festers.

So says the diabetic

Too much digesting
whatever sounds or colors that surround
and too little vomiting
forth, shouting
out from a precipice
with wild eyes

so that another might digest
and think
that they too, digest too frequently.

Lukewarm water does nothing for the spirit
but will keep me alive,
and if I live in temperance and embrace
tepid liquid like a stone bed
I may be better off,
but I may just start throwing glass
if I have to bear another sip,

and so I suppose I am pedestrian,
uniform

with everyone who is so ecstatic
about creation yet unable
to devote
to anything but the tingles
of sugar and vinegar
on their tongue.

And so I eat sensations,
devour reflections
and add each word another says
to my own corpulence:
it coats my lungs,
my heart, in hills of adipose
and I struggle for breath,
for more inhalation,
consumption.

When I flay the taste buds
from my tongue, burn
this accumulation
by mounting a peak
that looks above the people
out straight to the sea,

and exhale accumulation
until it rains,
I will be alive.

A child grasps for a leaf on a sunlit red brick terrace. A young man flashes his Canon, and creates art. There are many such pieces: loose skin patched around green stick bones, earnest, tender eyes, that ache for the leaf so near those fingertips. The children agonize for that sunburned crispness. Artists splay their pictures across desktop backgrounds and youth help billboards. But what about the children who drag their nails against the image, gnash the unbent colors as they teethe? They scale the tree, molt their down, assault passerby with orange peels, and scream: "I claim this tree, and I am king."

Frustration

Thoughts shake
as the vessel
pounds against plaster.

We are each a cluster
of ideas that orbit a dearth.
We plummet
yet feel still, and still

emptiness envelopes,

but we may dive
towards spreading light--

her smile may
brush along
your skin--

and systems spring from orbit
as two unseens
circle, dance,
and collide:

dust parts and cakes
like flour on his face, and veins
dispense their frustration
on the wall and on the floor.

When the next man enters,
a new thought goes 
its own way.