I’ve been doing a newish series of zines called infinitehaiku and this was a small cycle that didn’t fit but I enjoyed enough to share.
methodical call
dial tone bleating call sign
save this sinking ship
look over the waves
at sea, no shoreline in sight
at the tide’s mercy
preserver preserved
only room for one of us
you will see this through.
a day was a year/this song was a jam/i was happier then/that way/this time/was then was a a moment/this was that time/right now/right then/and i wished my life were in sepia/i was lost in the reverie of the color palette/keep me honest with/less than before/a year was a day and nothing was changing/i was the same as i am/i should have taken the bus//
another one from "shoutz."
later start to the morning than usual. i make these folders on my comp and write to a vibe or a concept for a while and "shoutz" is the latest one. i may post a few of these in the coming weeks.
calamity and cavernous thunder
spectral pyrotechnics
across a braindead sky
these poltergeist will prey
across the arc of lightning
keeping things honest
in howling made fresh as wounds
as bread baked daily. fade away
when you’re ready, perfect
crust. just warm enough.
home as a hell
loud enough for two
but it is solely for you.
good enough
through rattled bone and
wind and the whole thing
moves with purpose. just so
work has begun on a new chapbook and design/layout for #infinitehaiku II is imminent. I've also got something more substantial that's percolating and will be a bit of a departure from the usual style. Keeping the blade sharp or something...
wish the end times
were a bookmark
and the feel good,
happy fun times
were the ocean's currents.
pray to see the circle
and the square
resolve their differences
but the edges and the bends
make a beginning, some start,
impossible
hope becomes a broken
cruise liner, slow-rolling
over into an anticlimactic
boat-apocalypse. an end
played out by a squeaking
brass band's worst performance
in weeks. going to hell on a highway
lined with dead electric cars and
moments cast aside for something
slightly better. rusting out. corroded
all over. still with eyes. still watching.
lots of stuff in the works. you can find the new zine #infinitehaiku out and about or reach out if you're curious to learn more. Tapes on Fire is still available here. Bigger things coming sooner than later too. Get ready, it might be my best work yet.
draft's in
jury's out
we'll be a mechanized failure
in no time flat
weaponized defeat
in just a few short steps
and you can hit
that subscribe button
before long and watch
this undoing,
ungluing itself
from careful
applications
i am in
persuasion
mid-
resuscitation
resume the
reclamation
without indentation
consummate professional
in contemplation
after irritation and
simple math's
implications.
rappity rap
bim bam boom
scat forever
this is truth
you knew it then
you knew me now
in the know
in sequence
forever
forget it
the past will
clean up our
messes.
sorry for the interruption
not the favorite-
this/thy little misconception/them
nor us, like thee/home forever,
just like never/like always/
glow always/unwilling to
fade into the background/zoom out
"you are here"
always positioned/never lost/
these little spaces/made clear/made
visible/lone beacons in a starless sky/
we are now/we are never/we are forever
little known and eternal/delayed and on time/
right here, when needed.
you're never going out of style
almost and not quite/somewhere/this is now and then and never/even if you don’t notice/even when it crosses the path you are walking/we are never without it/one another/
one and all/the table full/napkins and salad forks/et cetera/ et al./no roll call/no voting “present”/
we will own this/put our names to it/become it/swell and burst with the facts/non fiction/one and all/
lend us this ear/yours/mine/the litany of others/i should have known/never in doubt/together, we will lay claim to what is ours/
in infinite wisdom,
this vision, reduces
the likelihood of
miscalculation. sets
free, sets fire to,
unlimited brush
with endless air.
in infinite wisdom,
forever extending,
forever, each ever
a new hill to roll right
on past. right onto the
next vista.
from up here,
i can see anything.
i will be everything.
whenever.
dress it up any way you like and i’ll give you the notes you’ve requested of me. to tell you the truth, that’s what you’ve asked of me. honest like headlights on a hill in dead nighttime. dead to rights, just out there floating. letting you know that something is waiting. maybe even getting a little closer. with each passing second. each of them. growing in stop motion. slow road to oblivion/salvation.
which of them/who of us really knows anything? i will make a truth out of whatever calls my name the sweetest. whatever knows the way to my heart. through me. into my soul and out another end with clean exit wounds.
oh, to be obliterated. knowing my own destruction. knowing the end, recording it as the opening track. cue the sounds of accompaniment to my wailing. I won’t be alone when it all comes out in the wash. there will be strings and horns and other lines of melody and harmony. we’ve been working a long time together. so much to tell you. so little time to be told.
listen.
tomorrow...Tapes on Fire. Link when it's live. There's a bunch of other ideas in the works. more on that later.
consider it a spot of luck
that hell is below us.
and hell fire isn't raining down
any time soon. any time. anywhere.
maybe in hell, but as we've already established:
we are at a strategic elevation. the advantage,
critical. let them make it rain all they want.
we're sitting pretty in the regular acid/microplastic
rain we've got topside. they'll have to think of something
a little different to get us on their level.
in the spirit of fairness, though:
i will tell you our next moves, but it
will be in a coded language. taps, almost like morse code, but instead just one rule:
3 taps is a
surrender.
we: don't: ever: surrender.
take that how you will. we'll be transmitting until we receive a response.
hell isn't other people, it's a deep cavern filled with pitchforks and fire and
ceramic swing sets. i'd be mad too. it might also have paid advertisements
interrupting your thoughts. what could be worse?
what could be worse?
in another spirit i'll answer my own question:
not: a: damn: thing.
we aren't heaven, but we sure is hell aren't settling for anything less than what we've got.
and if you want what we've got, well
come on up here and make an offer. we're listening.
In case I didn't say it here: Tapes on Fire (a book of poems I have been writing since 2018) drops on 6/1. I'll post a link when it goes live. Get it while it's hot, tepid, or something.
only when the sun says
hi there
or goodbye
do we know the issue at stake.
hi and bye
sit or stand
run with the best of them or walk with the other best of them.
each a version of the greatest, each a mirror. each equal and opposite, bizarro version of itself
talking backwards and jumping instead of walking.
such oddity, such majesty, such normalcy.
geriatric and infant, here and there, blink and we might miss the moment.
beginning and ending, these are the changes i pay the big bucks to see.
i'm going to be watching to see what happens. i'm going to pretend whatever it is
matters. it might.
If you don't know: Tapes on Fire, my first poetry collection, is in the final stages of approval, available soon unless you can find me and hustle one of the copies I ordered. More soon.
so, yes,
paint brush and broad strokes, impressions
of time
in competing lines,
concentric swirls. i am rarely absolute
in
the things i paint and the things i say.
smaller shrubs
and trees, sing harmony.
nature yawns and the air is
comfortable
warmth, the tinge of pollen, a light roast
coffee
without dilution or flavoring. somewhere-
strings, not
overstaying their welcome, adding to
the scene. the players
moving their bows in concentration,
an acceptable amount of
yearning loosed from their instruments.
from heart to string,
from air to lungs, ear to soul.
notes of merriment. notes:
content. insistence. it’s real, it’s here,
it’s now. drink
deep, be satisfied. these are the golden times
promised to no
one, here and now. yours and mine.
the brush dipped
into water. purified, made almost-new. made ready.
nothing comes
out the way i expect it. add, subtract, revise, revisit,
rescind.
results. look for yourself.
