Dear bullet,

People are imperfect, and I hope you acknowledge this when you reminisce on your spat-into-blackness birth. On the moment of release your head hit the roof. Your youth was a battle for space and a race in any direction to whatever light. But you persisted and despite another knock flew from me like a shot from a sling. But the damage was done: your course swerved in my darkness and post-exit my slime sapped your sheen. You'll probably stick into a frame in the wall rather than breech the atmosphere. But you're outside me now and I will never know.

Certainly Willow recognized people have differences and all, as she, enjoy mummifying ourselves in our blanket and leaving our partner shivering and tugging, and may understandably remark with condescension--that is of course empathetic--on a peer for the sake of promotion (for what is self-interest but envelopment in one's cocoon comforter); however, there remained a heartbeat too pronounced or a gaseous stomach or irritated skin when she shuffled past that partner or peer with blood-red plasma globe eyes rimmed with purple sleepless or betrayed lids. Undoubtedly she had a dream where she, her partner, that and her other peers, and others too--anyone, even all--could lay together and intertwine arms and legs like fibers to a cocoon, and become like inseparable cells of a hazelnut. She laughed when she thought how some would cry from suffocation or kick in the neck others while fighting claustrophobia and under-knee pains. Though, perhaps if all breathed and stretched simultaneously they would instead become a collective amoeba that with each puff shoots its way through the murk ahead. Through infinite distance in a finite plane, that falls infinitely yet finitely. And each puff is futile, and each puff gives momentum.

Pointless like a sphere--

some hazelnut dampened

by dirt that the rain just wet--

are thoughts soaked with fear,

because liquid evaporates

and all will dry 

if left in the sun for a while.

Keep at it

The baton passed to Robert and he swam in the sea that seemed to suck him in all directions. His form was imperfect, but is there an ideal form? Like the depth beneath his knees, the thought is unfathomable, and it burns like the sun or photograph flashes from the spectators on their boats that flick their lights at his toiling arms. Of course Robert can only swim so far until too much lactic acid or just exhaustion or despair slows his kicks, and he sinks; even though he dislikes it he must admit the hypocrisy of inhaling so desperately when he only draws in water. And so the baton passes to Jerry and he starts strong--swim, Jerry, the crowd and you and everything is on fire.

Diffuse from some collection
to a dispersal of atoms
that shoot or stick
independent of one another
and you shall have lived.

Tepid laps of water

that the sunset has colored black

sift through the still-warm sand

that I am nestled in. The stars

are out; I am alone.

Elucidate me, earth: tear

my flesh and give it to the grains

and pull me with the receding 

fluid. Make my mind lucid 

to the flow.

A mosquito meets my elbow

and as it departs I involuntarily

reach out in an extending

red pimple. I cannot be still

yet.

I scald myself frequently in worry's ice
bath, hold my head under and greet
delirium. I then hop out,
make a cheese omelet,
and could not feel better.

Drudgery trotted to me and slipped a syllabus
in my palm. Play pointless mind-games--
hops through hoops--and win
life! You live and are free!
Your reward: more games.

A minnow swims beside the window
into its whisky glass home. Grandpa
droned about metempsychosis
until he croaked. But his theory
is his own, and in I drop
a shot of Everclear,
and as the minnow twists
for joy I drain it all
so that for Grandpa
is one final choke!

Will they fire me tomorrow or
am I in fire now? Molten lakes
and sharpened rakes that scrape
away fleshy ease until a sound
like nails on blackboard screeeeks
and that shrill shrill worry makes me wonder
if a toad in warming water feels unease.

And here I sit on cushioned chair
with no bad news except the heater
is up a bit high.

A shock of hair that pulls him nearer until cold
the first sensation he thought then hard
until the tip of his nose whitens
and he bounces his gaze
from one opposite eye to its adjacent orb.

He breathes long hot breaths
until a foggy wet
thin gauze shrouds the pair.
He squeezes his own and arches back
and sneezes four crimson specks
from his alabaster nose.

An elder of the past and child of the present,
this moment he approximates trajectory
and launches intention through turbulence.

Sara did not know her hello would drain Bud's comfort like wine from a Franzia box punctured by a stiletto heel. They sat nearby for minutes for weeks now and watched the street for the bus and smiled when they converged, but he never spoke. Bud knew this moment: when the other wanted acquaintance beyond well-meaning faces. Conversation on topics endless. Words passed like vibrations through a Newton's Cradle where an end-ball bounces in pleasant surprise: "Hah, you love tiki masala too?" and then makes the other fly and it back-and-forths forever. But for Bud each time Sara or any woman set his ball abound some racket slaps it from its tether and he goes off. It's that thought of boxed wine or some dark viscous burgundy vintage trailing from the bent nose of his mother and her yells to pinch it back into place that hits like gunpowder against a dense iron ball that then shoots off at escape velocity straight to the stars. Bud pinched it into place. Sara, why do you leave him at the stop?

You sit in my armchair and say you may have breast cancer,
and I nod and type at my desk.
You continue and say you finally ran the full nine miles
     but stopped to rest and walk around the graveyard,
and I say good job. If I slept more I'd say more.

I tell you to leave my room and you laugh and say good night.
When you're gone I think about you being gone forever
until I consider sadness. You're strong willed but worried,
and I sit indifferent. If I were a pool I'd bear your tears
and try to reflect a happier image,
but lately I just feel like a cone that drains sewage.

Empty bottles, envelopes, bowls, receipts and bent papers on my desk remind me of Andrew's or Elanor's attempts to give meaning to pocketbook houses.

Nutritional life-boosting Carbonated Kale Invigoration $10
Saucer-cup keep-it-warm combo $15
$500 well done this week! mattress
     $10 umbrella because bonuses keep out the rain.

Tomorrow on sale is electric blanket and gas prices drop! keep treading and did you see Kim Jong executed eighty? Don't stop when you see the soda pop--buy the thirty-two pack and keep an eye out because war is on our doorstep.

I move my books aside and with one swipe slide the rest off the side of the desk and into the bin.

Underneath atop or around
my intentions are inside, outside
stitched to the back and shone
through the front of my eyes.

A thought flits through a mind
like one dime in a million
rolling in a funnel
and racing until its speed
outpaces observation
and it shoots through the exit.

A lip prick or tongue flick or eye twitch
spasms forth as spare change
exchanges potential for action
and a ding sounds and I wait for your reaction.

Is there some opening in eat now drink now thought that I can fall through and land on a violet budding bloom? Where body feels growth of foundation and nearby stands the reflective shore that extends unending and stays calm and crystalline? Somewhere. Deep down. A place where a frown is a wind that recedes and a smile too, and the air watches its movements and the water is always blue. And the violet buds and blooms. And you, sitting there, make roots and absorb the waters and grow too.

Emotions pass like pain
after stepping on broken glass--
skin is ripped and blood stains
and mind jumps, but a week
later it is a bother and a month
a reminiscence and a lifetime--
inexistence.

Ash foot steps then shin steps,
knee steps and as I walk stomach
neck and head steps. I would look behind
but there is no more I. The wind blows
and--ah! Here it is!

Despite sense that departs when we meet,
my mouth half-opens and quakes forth
my intention's dandruff, and eager hope
blooms repeatedly in a emerging and reemerging
bud. That must count for something.

One word, one word:
nothing. Another: everything.
Feeling seems to jump between
void and mass like a giddy madman
who cannot make up his mind.

Black spots drill holes in my head
These are holes, there is a hole in my head.
Something is missing.

It's an electric type of charge,
just some kind of magnetism
that creates this obstruction,
but it doesn't really matter
because it isn't really matter.

Ochre glyphs encircled your eyes

and subtle ferns  mixed with your black locks

when we first crossed paths on Halloween eve.

Now those marks give way

to bronze skin that condenses all energy

and pulls me nearer: each moment

makes each thought heavier and feeling hotter.

When our pupils meet the transparent twines

of deeper intentions erupt from our bodies

and knot with an electric spark in the brisk air.

 

Or at least it seems that way to me:

Infatuation with the sun will blind.

I am dust, yet daily lose myself in the flows
of hormones or emotions--I tremble with frustration
or anxiety. I tell myself even then that all is nothing,
but cannot negate feeling. It is meaningless,
but exists, and I will tumble
along this temperamental track
until my atoms lack unity.

Dig a hole until your fingers bleed
and then fill it with water and exotic fish
and exclaim that you've found meaning.

singularity, pleasure, dive
into hope of income or happiness.
Believe in a slogan that shouts
from a melted metal sign on rotting planks
or a recruiter dressed in animal pelt that stinks.

Hope reeks like fumes from burnt plastic
animal figurines. Their molten black drips
divert my attention and the noise blares and blares.

This tree-surrounded log cabin

where I rock and hum tunes

was planed and hammered

by numb fingers. 

Nearby the trunks assemble

in tight formation, and the roof

blocks starlight. My palms sweat.

It is now time to stand,

and I grip my axe handle.

Foggy morning, and hazy notions
of any obligations. Only thoughts
exist, that flit like sticks along a current
that leads somewhere.

There's a series of thip-thapping slaps
of the nail in your wheel against asphalt
and you say your friends have a dirty driveway
and I do not know what to say.

You stop behind a stationary car
and honk and yell at them to move
and you apologize about your anger
and I do not know what to say.

But I'm glad you are so active,
caught up in tires and shouts,
and how you don't believe your friend is in love,
Because if you were silent for just one moment
You would see that I have nothing to say.

Flying, slipping, falling
feeling stuck and lifeless beside some sparking star
that pulls you into its orbit and absorb intention.
can I speak?

Let's sit under this highway off-ramp roof:
remove your gloves and my fire will warm your palms,
and direct your gaze to my personal beach.
I do not swim because the river is cold
but each night it turns orange and the buildings
opposite yellow and signs red and the purple sky spirals
with gray clouds. I like life here, but the person in the next tent
keeps saying "lop heads, eat lead, lop heads, eat lead."

A rosy hillock beneath your eyes
makes me think: fire, fire!
Roll on coals and seethe
and wish to brush cheek on cheek.

I intended to pass some kind of meaning
that would make you stop and step back
from that treadmill of reply-to-these
and go-to-these. Your life is perfectly fine
and I am glad that you are immersed in associations,
but I feel like I would enjoy our time more
if we were drinking cold tea under a tarp
on a Gobi desert dune or sitting on moss-
covered rocks and under light-catching trees
beside a hurtling river. I suppose I am selfish
and there are bugs that bite and sunburn.
I am only sitting at a desk and imagining.
I am unsatisfied. How can you be satisfied?

Bend me like tin-foil
into a cone atop your head:
you may get odd stares,
but I'll protect your thoughts
like a beetle in liquid nitrogen
is safe from circulation.

Float in the sea of reality
because we really only float
and electron never touches electron
atom never atom
and so float
like driftwood that floats above water
and bounce but never touch
our atoms never touch.

The wall of uncanny unknowing
of whether I will surmount these tasks
is never as high as I first perceive.

The most compact wall
is just empty space
that neutrinos fly through
and life expands like supernova waves--
it is not stinted by mystery.

In fact, that makes it more worthwhile.

Granny Smith out-tastes Red Beautiful,
but I dislike all apples. Throw it at a windshield
and suffocate a Jaguar with confetti
and caramel apple suckers.

Or better, cut off my tongue
because all sweets are saccharin
and I speak like a cancerous cat
or someone with a smoke-hole
in their esophagus.

Go forth and be Epicurean
while Epicurus meditates and eats bran.

Morning Commute

The engine wheezes and pops and I pull out,
my vision fades and eyes droop,
and my consciousness fades from daydream
to vacuum as fatigue whips me like wisps
of morning haze against my windshield.

The turbulent shaking of this thin chassis
unsettles like doors that slam and siblings that wail,
and I adjust the blanket on my legs
to fend off the breeze through the rattling carcass.

But then the bulbous orange head stretches
its neck and turns the sky red and sea crystalline,
the wind slows, and I feel the brisk air
flowing also through my pores.

This morning I flew from the roof of my car after I fell asleep
and moon-jumped to the sea. In the afternoon
you introduced me to Tom, but I forgot your name.
Tonight I wade past the shore
and dive to meet blue corals.

Be a toad. It is beats petty anger and bitterness
at the slightest inconsistency in a moment.
Eat flies or realize
that you've got it good with your inwit.

Trap

Vain unaware erudition snares

in rust-blooming bear trap critique of each sensation
that claps around my ankle.

But when stuck I can think--

the sensory-confounding endorphin rush

where the dirt around cracking bones
becomes mounding black loam and the trees

and I can breathe. I pull my stump from the snare

and pour myself into the earth like damp morning spigot leaves.

.

Drip, dribble, void-black sap that drops
into the cup. Lips thin thick chapped
wrinkled and cold-sore'd touch
and their respective heads wake up.

Stencils on a ring-rounding hand organ
Dance or read or type or knead
but all bend when the music stops.

If I rend from them their pitch liquor
they would droop for a fortnight
and then perk up again
like a monkey that pulls a thorn from its sole.

You glance with that quizzical gaze

and wait for me to continue, but I am finished.

I stopped without asking you a question

or telling you much of myself

and my maypole does not draw

you to enwrap with orange warm arms

and braid with violet raspy laugh.

It is not sturdy. A wind would frazzle your work

and leave your colors flying from my tilted frame.

But the pole is buoy--a beacon. A feather on a peacock

that you can pluck. Call me sea-cock, not pole or rock

show me dye instead of fabric

an eye-drop will do

dripped below the pole into my pool.

Here where colors blend

intentions may infuse.

With winter comes the scent of heater-vent exhaust

that is more reminiscent of brisk mornings than the wet and fallen leaves.

That period in conversation

where a thought trails to dead-end in wet blackberry bramble

only makes me yearn to inhale that exhaust

and forget dripping branches and golden leaves.

But today I leave fumy embrace

with pack and teflon sleeping bag:

I'll dive into the pricking thicket
until my flesh drips like soggy sticks
and next morning's fog makes my lungs crisp.

An undeveloped rose plucked and dropped on loam

can glory in its fine smells, but will never know the bloom.

It does not feed insects that seek its pollen

or attract sensitive running tickling noses.

It remains and darkens the soil underneath mother's thorns.

Not until it sees others' bright petals scattered by playful swats

or dropped wilted and decayed on the ground,

the tree cut by scrupulous eyes,

and all decompose on ever-blackening and brightening soil,

does it sink with a final smile.

I've had enough asparagus and mint.

When I die,

Embalm me in treacle.

When I drive through hazy morning blackness I forget that wheels exist. Or limbs--I seem to sink into an abyss. A glad pit in suffocating black: each thought is a fiber that spreads and roots and deepens. I roll further and find that there is a brisk breeze. Feebleness. More thoughts arise that lead to strength when I realize that meditation dissociates from feeling and I grow and branch and then there it is: the sun has risen and cherry blossoms are abloom.

He called it experimentation

I live in a mechanized body. A teenage protégé, I built it to thwart my enemies. The words they flung at me glanced off the flesh-like tarpaulin exterior and I laughed as my creation’s face remained static.

It does have limitations. Years have passed and I did not consider growth. My form has cracked as I fit into the machine like a geisha’s foot into her shoe. I sometimes must talk to others and for that I spin rusted wheels and tap dials that stick.

Now I look at various people from behind the transition house’s desk: hairy, bruised, clean, athletic, stump-legged and in wheelchairs. I rotate the head ninety degrees east and there sits Nicole on the seat beside me. She has eyes pale blue like Neptune against caramel angular skin that concurrently shock and crystallize my squirming heart.

She asks me why I read Joyce and the wry curve of her thin purple lips lifts a tone of irony that slips through the ear’s transistor radio and titters about my body. I know how this will end. I languidly tap on this and that key and pull a string to open its mouth. It outpours the drainage waste of my true intentions and sounds:

                “He’s complex and I can’t understand anything really”—a pause as I abandon the keys to adjust the eyes that through inattentiveness fell on her chest—“but the words are nice and it has good imagery.”

“Ah. That does sound complex.” She smiles but averts her gaze to the residents.

A pink fedora glides to the desk.

                “Mail?” The wheezy hat asks.

                I arch the machine upright and bend it over the cardboard mail folder. A return rotation and then I say “None today. I’ll mark your wake-up for four next morning. Sleep well.”

                Before I sit I watch the gray curly hairs wave on his waving liver-spotted arm as the pink hat atop the frail man on his wheelchair glides to the door.

“Thank you, but I won’t be staying tonight.”

                Away from the shelter I find safety in my room. It is a white room with an olive air mattress in one corner and a plywood desk and notebooks in the other. One pad documents questions to use during conversation and the other details my experiments. Both are unreliable. The pre-thought questions only add to my robotic tone. The other lists chemicals, drugs, and alcohols that all have proved as useless as the phrases.  

Here at least I can move without ensuring its movements won’t make others suspicious. When free I stumble and arch around this cubicle, but it grows claustrophobic. The space feels too close now. I’ll drop off my bags and leave.

                Alcohol was crossed off and deemed unhelpful long ago but I nevertheless now find myself on a wooden chair at a dim corner table with a few shots of amber scotch. As I sit and decant the liquid through fabricated throat and into my gaping mouth, I forget myself and fuse into the skin-embracing gears.

                Those eyes again. At the bar and talking to a pair of shiny teeth with smooth skin and a button-down folded neatly on tan arms. She glances at me and waves. I lackadaisically lift my palm and the half-full glass beside it slides across the table but stops at the edge.

                “I wouldn’t have expected to see you here” says she, now standing at the table and pulling me into the orbit of billowing blue Neptune.

                Does she know what she’s putting me through? I tap the cloudy shape-shifting keys and try to make it speak. “I sometimes”—and then—“come here.”

                “Oh, ok. My friends and I are at the counter if you want to join in.”

                There were faces at the counter that either smiled at her or laughed at me when she walked away. I finished my drink.

                I like the night. Especially hazy nights like tonight. Above is a full moon or a street lamp. The sidewalk is hard but my feet seem to bounce along. Despite the coat on the gears the cold still seems to turn my skin into gelatin. My organs are wobbling. A sip from the bottle eases things but the night grows dimmer. Black now. Did I miss something?

                Sensation. Sickly sensation, but I feel. It is bright outside. There is a giggling trickle of water nearby and I am laying on dirt and rocks. I turn to my left and see a wheelchair and plastic legs and then that gray face and pink fedora.

                He wheezes. “Last night as I was feeding the minnows you fell from the sky. Or rather, that ledge.” He nods upwards to the steep muddy edge held in place by trees and roots. “You swan-dived onto a rock—sprock! Ha! I thought you were dead, but instead your head smashed and chest ruptured in a metallic din and one body fell out of another.” He clears his throat. “The flashiest molting I’ve seen in my days and I’ve seen quite a few things.”

                I see myself. Crooked arms and toothpick legs and a few feet shy of that body I built. I can move, though. I arch my back and sit beside his plastic legs. “Thank you,” I say, and don’t use buttons.

                “No, thank you. I only watched you fall. If you look ahead there’s a path that takes you from the ravine.”

                I exit and sit naked on the warm sidewalk beside the trees that line the precipice. My keys and wallet were on the other body, but that’s fine. I think I’ll sit here for a while and bask in the sun.

I am beginning to enjoy life and think I will settle down

Today a wormy root sprung from the seed that was in hibernation.
It gripped onto a rib and looks like it may live,
and a hyacinth could sprout.

Tonight I sterilize my scalpel
and slice out this lotus-lout.

My water bed is an aquarium

It is nice to hear bubbles pop,
and bounce together on plastic canoe,
but it is nicer to dive
and see together the crustaceans and coral caves that spurt foam--
it is then that we shall hear each other moan.

Sanity is a smile and nod at those who call you insane.

When I was young you promised that I never need tiptoe around the truth
and that every word would enter each ear without a single shout.

But what if I cannot tiptoe to you?
If the door between us is bolted
Or uncorked amber stops your ears
And that deafening shock of sound
of tremors from the bending walls
that creak and swat waves of uncanny aches
in hopeless defense against the attacker
that slams the unconscious by blind accident
and you with intent?

If I cannot tip my toes in your direction nor remove you from your situation,
then I will tip my noggin that this throbbing conscience is not all there is and exit exists.

Reasonably unsettling considerations
of that feather that slides along and tickles my gut
each time I happen upon your acquaintance
draw me to the realization that something
     is left unsaid.

Perhaps you can help: dip me in the boiling water
of your impacting steam-particle-pelleting questions
as to why I never laughed with you,
lacerate a line with your fine fingernail along my chest
and pluck out my sternum with your penetrating eyes,
puff with faery-breath fire
out that tickling scratching feather
so that finally my ghastly glazed-blue eyes can stare
     and not object.

Catch the Quasar

She was another of those: eyes pale blue like Neptune against caramel angular skin that urges me to dip into the aether and fly within the stormy blue winds. I shiver. I cannot hold my own against these. She asks me why I read Joyce and the wry curve of her thin purple lips lifts a tone of maroon irony that slips through the transistor radio of my ears and colors my already-turbulent waters with that yearning to return the idea and add my hue to the canvass on which she first drew. If only she knew that I was too far in deep space to mind Neptune: I'm blind to all until I meet Miss Begin. 

the point pinpoint pinprick where is the point

Here is the point: Between cone-shaped crater
on my stretched-white cheek
and this firm beige rod that my fingers squeeze
the graphite draws blood on flesh.

My eyes fixate on the paper
and try to draw meaning with ink of desperation
but to no avail; I decide then I must act
and make my point meet paper,
but when I sign my name it bleats sanguine letters.

Cain's creature then lifts the blood-signed pact
and places me and it in his flesh-skinned pack.

I fell in pitch the other day

And sank to my nose and before my eyes burned

With blinding blackness I noted the twisting brown boughs

And grey-blue sky that swung an arrowhead flock of jet specks

That soared out of sight. I last saw behind the high thinning

Branches the half-full blue waning moon.

I then proceeded to happily suffocate in the mire.

College Dreams

When the fickle moon-beam glances on my cheek

I have prickling moon dreams

Where teams of red-black flannelled collegiates

In rows of three’s and four’s wearing bandolier

Sashes filled with ashes of all the books

And thoughts I’ve ever loved

March atop my prostrate body and crack

My brittle bones into my splintered bed and the treaded dirt beneath.

When they fire the ashes into the air

I wake and realize the flash is only a ray,

But my bones still shake.

We didn't quite connect this evening

When will words be more than my and your story--

When will we as individuals break

Like two balls of vinegar that burst in an olive-oily medium and swirl

And discolor and merge

In a mind-mingling and sense-sharing convergence?

Not tonight, because I dipped my bread onto the plate

And soaked the oily fluids and swallowed them whole,

But maybe we can dine tomorrow and refill the dry indenture.

Marsyas' Game

I challenge you to a back-and-forth of ideas;

The rules are simple: each individual

Has an allotted time to transmit a phrase

That is concurrently coherent,

Intelligent, and imbued with undertone

Of nonchalance and wit.

One point for each successfully transferred clause

And one negative point for each stumble, mid-sentence

Pause, break of eye contact that exceeds three seconds,

Or irrelevant statement.

The game lasts fifteen minutes. The winner gains reputation,

And the loser will be flayed alive.

Flea

Should I feel bad when I pinch a flee on my arm

And put it on my desk and squeeze it against the wood

And feel satisfaction when I hear its carcass pop?

Or anger when I spot another on my shirt

And kill that one too. And then pour chemicals

On my dog's coat and commit flea genocide?

Should I question my sanity

When I ignore your questions about the weather

And watch you silently as you scramble for a word to say?

Stars are like a sea in which I delve,
shoot through unecessesties,
fly through specks of matter,
and perhaps see the earth
as a dot that disappears.

Secret

This thick talisman of slow-seeping sap is stuck on my chest.

It continually outpours from my skin pours in a steady

Oozing slow wax-melting flow. From time to time I

Chew the sap to relax, but mostly it sticks to my shirt

And keeps me from ever feeling very clean.

Vine-man lived on indoor Pothos

And whistled on torn-leaf flute:

Twee dee do dee

Sun shine on me

Twee dee dee dum

Warm and give freedom.

He stowed the green instrument

After giving a final captivated glimpse

On its emerald and bright blooming

Highlights from gravitating sunburst

In his weaved torn-leaf side-bag.

A short slide on trusted vine

brought him to brown-leaf bed.

One last glimpse over pot's rim

At the dusty censoring glass pane

And then he laid down his head.

A Man and his Pipe

Leaning back anthropomorph

I’m happy to take this time to unwind

And sip from Briarwood Amphora--

Pipe

Gug gurgle phwip

Puff phwup pffuff

L.b a

--The ambrosial curling milk from tooth-marked mouthpiece

That uplifts me on whirling grey-white nimbus.

Pipe

Pth pth pffrolickth

Gripth the glad fumes--

L.b a

Your wispy Cavendish winds enwrap my whims

and rebirth them into fluid reflections that float above the earth.

Pipe

--And intake: my nicotine

bestows the dopamine you desire!

Sit and make ritual; succumb to relaxation.

Stain your fingers, nails, hairs,

and grip my cusp with lips and tongue

so that my vapor seeps into your lungs!

L.b a

Tired now, I return amphora to drughm hick hmph

sptoo! chest pocket.

Tonight I may choke on pleghm

Or tomorrow my insides sprout thicket of tumors

But I do not fear death

and will experience excitement.

Pipe

Thump-crack.

I stained your shirt.

Spinning at whirling speeds along unknown trajectory

We fly past nebulae, stars, dust;

Plop I fell from starship upon rock

Upon which crawl odd no-eyed pale

And fingernail-sized crustaceans

That enter and exit holes in grey crust

And do not mind me.

I sat down and pressed one between thumb and forefinger

And was sad when it cracked.

To write in verse is to lesion ideas

Spawn iambic eagles that poke out my eyes

Henry waddlesworth knew he was

He was a pickulissifus he was

But didn’t know that in his palm

Was a grain of dirt from morn’s quook gatherun

That housed colony upteen of species eleven

Under the far-spread  Infinigranulion Federation.

Henry W’s palm’s crease incubated colony upt

Which would soon have built infrastructure enough

To send its own colonists to unknown regions.

Inspiration at the Local Cafe

This public place where space-less linger, rapt,

Gives me solace. Where fair cherry wood seats

Accept my back, and I cannot adapt

To clatter of Protean mouths and beats.

I thrive among this amorphous clatter,

Have grown fond of noise and unfamiliar

Faces but familiar seat and chatter

Of voices unregistered but so near.

It’s like I dive in fluctuating sea

Where rippling currents defy cognition

Until elusive old man Noise decrees

After I clasp and persist: perception.

Each visit I grapple the novel mood

‘Til chaos morphs at last into my muse.

caution ramble draft

Tired tired too tired to think? Unadmired. What am I trying to say?

Sometimes speech can be difficult, but a smile shines through. Thoughts can be difficult, but a good notion can explode into a big-bang colossal everywhere-extending breadth and blind the dark vacant mind with redyellowpink bright blossoming bliss that creates clouds that make burning spheres that form stars and planets and life. An initial minor impulse of effort is impetus for the unfathomable.

Well-Cut Sashimi

Why do I fear speaking?

Seeking, sea king, peeking

Duck?

I yearn to open my mind to another

But the gates are iron-bolted

And the gnome key-keeper keeps the key

From me.

I want to tell a story

Improvised and invented

Indifferent to its quality

Only speaking.

I, the sea king

Seeking fearlessly across reality’s wakes,

Peeking into the enigmatic,

Subtle, dark, and cloudy sea

And rising

With a silver-scaled fish in my beak.

Undersea

I admit that I speak infrequently

And will make you feel awkward. If you can

Break through broken conversation—

Crashing breakers that roar with white foam

That gurgles on turbid green shores—

And dive and bear building pressure and popping ears,

Then we may meet beneath the turmoil

In an undersea dome.

Lilacs grow here, and the water

Is somehow more clear. Speech is still scarce,

But as we sit side-by-side on a green carpet

Of algae and grass beside a river trickling through coral-rock,

I feel like we have found an Elysium,

That reveals the rolling anxious waves

As mere undulating currents.

Among these fluctuations

We seem to understand.

But remember: mind the stream.

A Fall Day

I sit on a wrought iron table

Beside white-paneled wall intermixed with brick.

It Never Entered My Mind coos

And temperate flushes of autumnal winds

Uplift evergreen scent and sunny specks and a red-yellow leaf

And coax me into contemplative mood.

A crusted demitasse and empty glass

Stand beside my folded palms

And through ringed somnolent eyes

I stare at sugarcane plant plumes bulging black against the clouds

Into blue-purple sky.

I Probably Shouldn't Have

Crashing crunch of tires skidding on loose dirt

And flying dust debris and jerk of rattling

Creaking broken pipe steaming

Were background to my mind screaming

When I saw your face slam against the dashboard.

As soon as my unconscious death-grip loosened

From the wheel I clutched your shoulders

And pulled your face into view. Your features are similar
But fresher than mine. Your cheeks are aflame and nose leaks blood,
But your eyes gleam life through bewilderment.

I am glad you are unharmed. I slumbered

At the wheel and car is bent smoking

But you are alive.

Will I dream tonight

And swim with her

The one who smiles back

Or rest

In peaceful deathlike rest?

Driving home can be fun

When the sky is blue-red.

Run

From reality

Soar

Into the colors.

Enamored by your face,

I want to know if I would die

If I took a step closer

Because from where I stand

My body glows with fiery heat

That vibrates and burns and rocks my chest and

inflames and blinds my vision.

Would these feelings

Grow and burst

And would I die

If one step nearer?

Am I discontent?

Do my constant flights

And consequent constant falls

Only damage

As my head rubs against gravel,

Or do I know pleasure?

Is a seat and buttons pleasure?

Do I live in a ruse

A disguise, to which one day

I’ll open my eyes

And see

That I wasted hours and

Days and

Years and,

Without living,

Died.

Respite rest nice el sueño de la razón,

Slumbering silent calming breaths,

I enjoy the embrace of your cooing somnolent breasts.

Ah, wispy pillows and eiderdown sheets—

Envelope me like shady willows and warm grassy peat

on mid-noon among sprigs of sweet sugar-scented valerian!

I’ll sip the nectar of eternity

As I lay among the clouds,

And know that I have always sleep

As respite from waking reason

That always produce monstruous.

firefire

Youthful adventure turned searing hot-faced dry throat burning
campfire now field fire smoky eye-burning field fire.
Run from the flames tell the others but hide your name.

Dreary-eyed too-little-slept student
assembles bag and head bent leaves room.
He returns that afternoon to drapes black,
ash on soaked bed
soggy floor wasted sodden papers
and a notice of fire from forgotten candle on the door.

I'm glad to escape the flames and continue life,
but eventually fire may spread to limbs
brief bright immolation pain out with the lights.
I escaped
but death seems always to have me by the nape.

a fine fella

Your tattooed face does not belie,

Nor knife wound across cheek overshadow,

Your dimpled smile.

Your incoherent words

Or short explicit lyricism

Do not besmirch your enthusiasm.

You plan to strip tease

Pan-handle for girlfriends on Broadway

And teach kindergarten

Where full spectrum of colors and races bring wonder

And all children participate together.

You’ve been hurt by others

Been to prison

Know the real gangsters

Know the underground livin’;

But yet, when she grabbed your pants

And pulled them up

You complained about assault

Rather than give way to aggression.

Your tattoos and battle-scars

Do not make you seem lifeless.

You’re on your guard, but nevertheless

You see life’s beauty

And I’ve seen you laugh eternal.

skimming across the surface shallow shallow shallow thoughtless

Thistle between teeth,

I smile absent-mindedly

With one hand on wheel

And the other hanging from window.

Past dark green  tree-bushes and savanna grasses

On sloping hills I climb.

A lake bright with blue sky shimmers far below.

It is all very nice, I think,

And glance again at the road.

I pass over the hill-top

And see ocean bright with blue sky

That shimmers—

But I thought Inevermind—

And I smile

Absent-mindedly

As again I drive this route.

thoughts from uni days

amateur short story from just after first uni year... but hey, all of my stuff is pretty amateur and this is short and sweet.---

A body lay on the floor. Its skin was pale, lips parted and eyes halfway open. Its clothes were dirty like the ground around it. There was no blood. Fast footsteps approached. A young man entered and a young woman followed him.

                The woman stopped and shouted between pants. The man stopped and looked at her.

                “What?” He said.

                “Look. A body.” She began to approach.

                “Stop, don’t touch it.”

                “Is he dead?” She stood like a statue and her eyes were sad.

                “I think so.” He walked past her and squatted beside it. He eyed it closely. “It’s dead.” He stood and looked at her. “We need to keep going.”

                “We can’t leave him here.” Her gaze didn’t leave the body.

                “We can’t do anything. It’s dead. We need to go.” He began to walk.

                She didn’t move. Her eyes were attached to the body. Her lips were parted and her cheeks white and her eyes still sad.

                He stopped and looked behind at her. “We need to go. I’m going. You can bury it or carry it but you’ll fall behind. It already lost. If we don’t keep going, we’ll lose too.”

                She looked at him. Her eyes were cold and when she spoke her voice faltered. “You’re insensitive. You can’t be human.”

                “Are you coming?”

                “Yes.”

                They both began to walk. She stopped.

                “You don’t know where you’re going, do you?”

                He stopped and looked at the ground. Suddenly, he grabbed her arm and pulled hard. “Come on, we need to hurry.”

                They both ran.

Unshaved bristled face cigarette between both lips

In fake silk bath robe and creaking rocking chair near sturdy walking stick he sat

Back and forth forward and backward trail of smoke rose from nostrils and lips

Chair creaked to tune of blueberry hill

But mind listened to beating of heart and rasping of throat

He scratched his face and grimaced because it’s not too long now

Back on bed he’ll soon be dead priest above

Bombarding hellfire speech

The blood seethes and boils why did you not give up that lewd that impure

Oh, thought he, I could have lived and loved

If this growth didn’t spread like warm yeast and flour rising bread

Clicking clacking heart against black bones

Tip tap my cane as creak crack back I stand

Back hurts groan escapes mouth

Ashes fall to floor

Click tap face slap—tired

But awake enough

Its just a trifle

A small thing

To go into the closet, behind the coats

Load and then press finger

I won’t even hear the click of the rifle

--------------

joyce helped with hellfire, one line is his

i dont mind smoking, do it myself time to time

he was probably just old and sad

Cheer up buttercup she said and he smiled

Buttercup cheer up buttercup cup of butter be happy

He smiled because she jokingly made him small

Buttercup small sad buttercup cheer up buttercup

She's cool, big, not a buttercup but a cheerer of cups of butter--

Maybe someday she’ll grin at me and call me buttercup and I’ll cheer up.

Terrible day, no use trying

To repair lost time with smiles

Nothing fulfilling, all superfluous

I skirted across the wakes

A bouncing oblivious blundering stone

Skipping prancing oh-so happy to speak

And pass the time

Thought Comforts

Blunt stones and shattered glass of anxiety

That grind and crack will

And lacerate comforting plush of calm

Disembowel.

That brisk wind of rolling thoughts

That seamlessly translates into words

Soothing, smiles—

Emit word, laughter!—

Torn, confused, made introspect

With thoughts racing, breaking

Oh youdon’t thinkIdidn’t mean

Clashmisunderstand heat willshehe notheydont

Understand!

Dedalus epiphanied in confession box.

Perhaps if I realize that life flows, progresses;

Admit to myself that the past has just happened,

I can smile at any halts or recesses

And see conversation’s wonder:

When an idea comes to mind

And you say and I say

And thoughts connect and words roll

In a constant, present, unceasing flow.

I do not know confession box,

But when turbulent in mind

I like to walk to the source

Where the spring gurgles upwards

And present is present and the past has flown past.