slip

 

and fall
and cue the zap of a pain
slink up the spine
and back again

ice is nice and ice is right and god is good and i suffice and we will all sing and dance

little to no warning. little left. this, a sense worth sensing. a pain worth paining. 
these, all god's good children, each of them, yelping in harmony, pain receptors,
sing these wounds to sleep. sing this sleep to something deeper.

sing and dance and find romance and let the body understand

after the white, hot flash. little to nothing compares. what is left, anyway? we are all one simple step from perfection. one simple slip from making the circuit a cycle, a cylinder. completion.

right on time.

never far from home.

fanfire and ice

 a reminder: if you want to read my latest project, you can view and download rorschach. here's something else entirely

go tell it on another mountain
but not this one. we're all out of patience
for announcement, for accolades. we're up to
our armpits in the resolutions, the absolutions,
the institutions, the inspired chants, the liturgal
epiphanies, the mathematical and cold pronouncements,
gender reveals, pet gotcha days. 

we've had our fill, these glimpses into hellfire. these convivial pitchfork and torch gatherings.
get thee to somewhere without surprise and fanfare. get thee something good for your troubles. sweet, sweet oblivion wrapped in bacon. served with a garnish.

we're telling you what is what. who is who. when is where. and so on and so forth. like clockwork. depend on it.

go tell it on their mountain.
go tell it over there.
go tell it, if they listen.
let them deal with it.
we've all had our fill. 

rorschach: a digital zine

January came and I decided to craft a project. It started with daily writing and it quickly took its own shape and form. I decided not to print it and made it available to you, warts and all. Here is rorschach. Feel free to download, print it, or do whatever it is you do with it. Let me know what you think.

grown up nightmare

ink blots...your future...know yourself on 2/8. here's something in the meantime.

grill times     everyone's smiling    my friends and yours    
    i will let the sun shine    sing song and warmed beer    everything coming up coleslaw

            hum along with me    hum along with you    watermelon down to the rind
flies waiting with tender hunger    tooth-marked husk of corn    water slide buffoonery

some days    we're made for it        some days    it's made of us

                                                bring us the condiments
                                                demand satisfaction    do we even know each other?
        little acts of friendship    everything is coming up at the end of the night

we can't wait to do it again.

a haiku so i can pretend i am at peace inside

I think the title says it all.

felt chill, this tundra
little icebergs and frost heaves in the countryside 

(S)lumber

 

grief forever

silly little hopeful giant

silly me and the large dog i rode in on-jaws open, mouth breathing, sure of my own success, still wincing from the scars of the last tarring and feathering 

this itch never goes away, does it?

here to assert justice, some howling order to the unraveled order of another outpost in need of heeling-in need of knowing what is expected

silly little me thinking my order is the same-the universe works with or against at will, in fleeting smirks and animated rages of a toddler

silly fly, oblivious-believing all angles are covered before the end arrives in a righteous, almighty slap. 

silly giant. silly little me. your/our vision is not all seeing. the hand is not one-size-fits-all. the slap, however, is always almighty.

Solara 96-110

 sorry for the wait, world.

XCVI
my words are more like nonsense and still, someone is agreeing with me. they’ll come forward, in disinterested clumps/amoebas who can’t be bothered to congeal. hell no, we won’t grow! little tests of disbursement. lessening the impact. still they will arrive at the appropriate moment to chant something like a sad battlecry, another little ditty made by a combination of scatting and yawning. to think, this all came from nothing.

XCVII

you know that i/critter of the swamp/deep forest kin/sad enough for two of us/mourn collections of broken trees and the rotting stumps of yesterday//i done told you, pa/there ain’t nothing for us here anymore/not like yester-years//a voice emits from swamp country-beware-it snaps-for my violin is broken and i have used the word “for” when speaking to you. this must mean i am serious//i am a conscientious swamp thing objector/give us honest truths/those condos aren’t building themselves//pa, get off’n them condos/they ain’t hiring none of us under the best’ve them circumstances//free labor is the voice of the people//i’ve had about enough of this swamp shilling/sad to be leaving, but look what we’ve become//

XCVIII

when will the babbling stop? i would like to know. i would like a timeline expressing the ability to change and the inability to let the real words come to the surface. bad enough, we let real sentences stand on their own merit. word bubbles, next to the river, like it has something to say. we cannot understand the language of water. it was never meant for us. not you, and certainly not me. i will lay my head on the pillow each night and know i’ve done what’s required of me; water thoughts be damned. what will the current bring to you? 

XCIX

like a bridge/over the Atlantic Ocean/like the industry cropping up on said bridge/think of the gas monopolies//the hotel chains, springing up like snakes out of a cylindrical can/economy revitalized//shirts commemorating the trip/like a dream, only commercial/only filled with roadside attractions/only a pain when you break down/all that smog and the fish below/we’ve done it/

C

We were leaving, long before the rest of us had planned to go. No bags, just our feet, the wind. This fellowship. We knew what was behind us. We didn’t want it anymore; not like this. Not this time. You followed suit, eventually. Followed the path we marked with scuffs, our easy conversation and camaraderie with one another, still drifting on the wind. Along the metal, over the water of a river long forgotten. We all went elsewhere, to a point unknown, unimportant. Just, not here.

CI

Fidelity/Thy name/Is a flower/In a barren field/Next to a rotted out tire/Shine yourself/Back into the forefront/You’ve earned your fifteen minutes/Baby

CII

is nature/good/and done yet?

mingling with our affairs/our

ill-gotten/treasures/hidden on

maps of a golden/imagined country.

interceding with what we’ve/made/

linking within an abandoned fence/this

Semi-forgotten bicycle? Can we/just

agree to go our separate ways?

CIII

I can’t/won’t change what you did/left to devices less formal/less honest/rewritten along the rust marks/along the old wounded lineage/I can’t bring it back to life/not the way you want it to be/not like before/not even halfway back, or halfway/there/the silver standard, untouchable/you’ve been handed an opportunity/not an invitation to revision/lessen exposure/lessen the blow to the ego/let the rust become native and take control of the operation/we’ll have to make do with what is left/salvage it/somehow/

CIV

Some unseen hand, in an unseen tongue, on a spent piece of paper, has taken to recording the enterprise of the past. Left us, guessing at the detailed notes. Headshakes and mutterings. Another lost opportunity. Not recorded in the annals of history. Another one, gone. Again.

CV

exposure/the sun/like wrinkles,

this/like parchment/finer aging,

this/loadstar, shackle on the neck,

this/a destination/an obstacle,

both/this/in heat mirage/shimmering

air, this/lend me what is yours/not mine,

this/ 

CVI

truth is vision/and what the eye/is beholden

to/the truth is/that i am no longer/seeing clearly/

what is in front of my eye/instead/i invent a truth

fitting my purpose/my need/another color, another

shape/another landscape//

wind, rake this still form/gather the dust 

and swirl/remake

this truth into something we will

all believe.

CVII

gurgle and whimper/the future has devoured me/beneath the waves/cosmic/sound/ocean/all in a swirl of cacophony/let my heart know it is stopping soon and/the sputtering is natural and/soon i am food for a fish/set of fishes/or an enterprising beast designed in sound/the light is faster than we imagined/even with everything we know/we still/know nothing/

CVIII

shifting the terms of service/fire below water/lightning on both levels/what we see and hear/not relevant to a discussion of this magnitude/as earth splits/as water leaks from the apartment above/less you know/less it your friend/as the smoke shifts downward/up and away/we are going somewhere unexpected yet/yes/another surprise/right about now, you’ll be coming up for air/surprised to see what remains/what has left us/

CIX

Not sure/relief/or pained response/misfiring of a synapse/the leg kept twitching/long after the brain was good and done/who knew what was really/at peace/what does rest look like\when left to our devices/moments of weakness/a triumph in stillness/this, a monument/this, inflection point/willed into knowing yourself/like an arbitrary spin of a wheel/spokes flying in all directions/and then, peace/

CX

this is
not what i
had in mind
when the day
started. dearly
absent lightning
and broken crack
of thunder. my stare
has traveled the eons
and cosmos. i expect
some raving spectacle
and was met with
unsure cymbal claspings,
shrugs from the players,
less prepared than me
for what comes out of
the sky. today. 

so much less

 i
know it
you cannot understand

will it be 
something
unusual?

this relief?
in another world
another time

unlike the
limits of yesterday
and years prior

what once
was a dream-
was a dream.

once
another nightmare,
these

little miracles
under the microscope
this life, examined

goodness,
unlimited.
in short supply

everything must go
not even the 
displays will remain

we remake
ourselves
in a world

brand new.
our greatest
creation.

here and now.

so much more

 

scream the disregulation
into an envelope. seal it
with appropriate postage.
send it out on schedule

find rhythm
click and clack to
left-field percussion
and learn what it means to

fall in love
with yourself again. enjoy
your (my) imperfections
embrace your (this is self referential)

quirks. 

you/i are a being of cells and light
sometimes water
certainly water

a child of something like a god
only less exciting
and less all-knowing

i am letting you (this time, you, not me)
in on another
secret

eventually

biography of a past life

 something to remind myself of the old times

once concerned with nothing but little oddities minor curves and slumps and stranger yelps from a small, wounded elephant. still another sleeping sunken cost fallacy. a few other cast lines, reeling up from the last time. another gulp of air again. another trip around a moon cycle. gradual phase out, little lesser shoutings. steam rising. stern tidings and lost wishes. we are all drifting in an empty space, cast off string, easily seen. somehow known. draft from the window, draft from the last gust. gasp. dreading the losses, dreading the leaving. rest, assured. rest and find another peace. before too long.

this xmas miracle/curse

i pluck the leaves from the lily and adhere
it to the daffodil. smell
the floral assault i
made that
with these hands and 
sheers and a
little bit of squinting. focus
unlimited
like lesser constellations like
the pebbles used to wake a paramour from
slumber like
each skip of ice from an angry sky’s tear drops
what is made for me-
for you-
for us- and from one to another.
made monstrous and whole
and beautiful in its otherness.
drifting seamless from
one to another.
the dream-
set an intention.

the thought is what counts this
season.

coffee prayer

 

swill it around, drink it down, let it sit with your feeling

another emptiness

this one, like another, like the others, like no other

all flitting between. the flutter of a half-crazed moth

singing away, this arrhythmic clapping of wings. frittering until the light goes out

to rest again, with feet up

in the dark

no other knows me

little to none, little did i know, little to forget

amounting to ash and dust

soundtracked by passing laughter

echoing down the otherwise barren street. one light, long forgotten.

remember us sinners.

Simple Saturday

 

those grinning flies

lesser and lesser

circle and buzz

around the remains

of yesterday’s feast

slip and stumble and croak

and grimace and smile with your teeth

Flies, all of them, smelling and tasting

With foot jam and little hairs

Probe the world through

The mouth and saliva

Ingest and be whole

Mapquest

Here's another moment

left left right left
and the directions write themselves
right left left right
and the world is giggling with some sense of reserve

up down up down
i imagine you are still finding
yourself out there
down down down up

diagonal patterns and lights whirring
little footfalls, end becomes beginning
up left right down
i'd like to pretend this means something

really, i'm just killing time,
really, killing time
really.

let them know this is what we do now
here
what we do
no directions required
anymore

hope is...

 hope you and yours are well. lots to discuss in the near future. for now, here's this:

i will not allow myself this feeling forever. once before, not again. this time, i am not the scared child of the past. this time, the smaller versions of me are external. they needed the version of me that i needed but couldn’t give myself, wasn’t ready to be. i won’t sink into the worse version of myself that seeps in and burrows in on itself when faced with something this fresh, this angry, clawing, seeking. this is not my rage, it is the beginning of my eyes lighting along the horizon, taking on heat, and letting the feeling and the rays move outward. what will be left in the wake of my vision

these cinders, this kindling spent, this: the world i choose to make my own. nothing has ever been clearer to me, nothing has ever seemed so far away either. i speak in tongues to myself, at night, when not dug too deep into the fear

promise myself something better this time.