Zero Division 9781608640300, 2011013497, 1608640302

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zer0 division

Zer0 Division J o s e p h M . G a nt

Rebel Satori Press Bar Harbor, Maine

Published in the United States of America by REBEL SATORI PRESS P.O. Box 363 Hulls Cove, ME 04644 www.rebelsatoripress.com Copyright © 2011 by Joseph M. Gant. All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Book design by Sven Davisson ISBN: 978-1-60864-030-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gant, Joseph M. Zero division / Joseph M. Gant. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-60864-030-0 (pbk.) I. Title. PS3607.A57Z18 2011 811’.6--dc22

2011013497

Acknowledgements Poems in this collection have appeared previously in: Lines Written w/ a Razor, Breadcrumb Scabs, Sex And Murder Magazine, Gloom Cupboard, Mandala Magazine, Ashé, The Stray Branch, Dark Gothic Resurrected, Shoots And Vines, Fear and Trembling, Niteblade, Chaffey Review, Houston Literary Review, Zygote In My Coffee, Literary Tonic, Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Negative Suck, Full Of Crow, Danse Macabre, Calliope Nerve, 1000th Monkey, Mastodon Dentist, Disenthralled, The Maynard, Ghostlight, Asphodel Madness, Outsider Writers Collective, Leaf Garden, Shot Glass Journal, and Alternative Reel

Contents

Where I Sit Mirrored Table Top For Naught Pushed At Both Ends Regeneration Rebel Disorder Yes You Pangs Of Days And Scissors’ Joy McNomials Uncounted Cost Of Samaya Biology Corrosive Juices Daydream Down At The J And Flying Album Playing Distance Midnight Strokes Hold ‘em Pick A Part Golem Ten Years Of Marriage Void Transaction Words Of The Un-profound Wet Remnants Of Trash Day Hallmark Chasing Whispers Nothing Will Three Fifths Full Consumption Stripped Of Title

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 28 29 30 32 33 34 35

What We Have Beside Immortal Blossom End Of The Chain Stainless Hearts Of You The Score The Wash Stranger Each Time Can’t Waltz Of The Need Orchid Orange Watching Treasured Violet Watching The Fall High Time Knock, Knock Bad Code Harder Than Time Beggar’s Clothes Again The Flowers Dislocated Cells Tears And Tatters Pi Cancerous Sonnet For A Tumor Letters And Words Crypto Amorphous Suck Just Another Crack Poem Garment Wakeful Plasticity Coming And Going Lost Children Referee

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 50 51 52 53 55 56 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Marching Orders Morning Cancer Pulling Feathers Communion Waiting For A Message We Had To Put The Foot Down Another Problem Dark Recess Hokum Growing Young Smiles In A Room Reexamined Bounded In A Nut Shell Divide By ZerØ Union The Space That Makes The Past I Tried To Save The World Forgotten Xmas Morning Clear Cut Re-entry Burns Split The Difference Hydrogen, Oxygen, And You The Measure Of What Matters Again And Again What You Will With It Disengaged Long Distance Toll Making Change Travel Logs Extinction Season It Was Mary’s Choice Me And You Spectacles Whiskey Lips The Loss

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

All Framed Up What For In On It Hard Swallow Let Me Be Exhibition Matches A Boy Forgot To Dream One Night Valentine’s Eve Each Of Us What Day Had It Been Insertion Out Of Tune Falling On My Refuge Little Toys My World Wide Open Refuge In The Now A Million Years Wandering Thoughts Where I Sit And Eat My Mashed Potatoes Cleansing Rites Of Passage All The World Never Alone In My Toils Carted Away The Shame Of Her Poor Statistic Redemption Battery How To Proceed Bury Me In These Boots Shooting Vandals Instant Replay Where Have They Gone

114 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148

Where I Sit the straight life is a phantom of a dream I’ve never had. hands that reach to touch fall limp and empty, grasping at a life imagined— from the womb’s defecation to this chair where now I sit, a long, pastoral, quaint and narrow breath of time can never be for me outside of poems and of daydream-rhymes. the straight life is a ghost, no bones, no face I’ll ever recognize; ever know nor strive to try.

1

Mirrored Table Top dolls’ eyes roll inside a candy dish, curious finger stirs the sweets; plucks delights, and one by one, ruby lips and supple tongue make blindness of the joy that was never right nor of this world to make itself in daylight known where players lay their Queens and Knaves— doubled down and folded.

2

For Naught morality is plastic— pressed and molded, not like cotton, earth nor silk. the spider weaves nature from between her legs; tenuous as the fiber spun from fields into the shrouds all heroes and all villains wear alike beneath the dirt. forgotten are the titles and deeds.

3

Pushed At Both Ends fountain by the riverside why’d you go and turn to dust? everything’s a sham. come and play upon this pipe, Sweet Prince, you fuck who bound me to the rock to burn, melt, hit, come to life in stars . . . to feel the moments count the dying down. time is money. money time, so why can’t I afford my watch? everything’s a sham.

4

Regeneration when loss of satisfaction left us destitute and wild in the savagery of youth we opened up our eyes to that which still remained– and paved a road to hell that we refused to walk. and joylessness became the song we sang on lips, parched beneath the scorching sky. thirst for breath not quenched by hours turning like the past-time games of memory and sand. in us there lies a hymnal torn, and pages of the detour drifting as we lead each other home in vessels, wooden, lined with manufactured sin.

5

Rebel Disorder shooting stars duck cover glory stinks of sulfur black hole smokes and burns my state of mind now annexed from the union

6

Yes You that you are stupid wanes beneath the waxing of your knowing it. once, I deemed you ignorant, but such is too sophisticated, less apt a word, to describe the plainly stupid you’ve become. and you embrace this like a feather down, head buried ‘neath a blanket dark and foul; all full of discovery. the perfection of intelligence is an often cold, aloof and unapproachable bitch, but a dry hump, at least, on the leg of her would testify concern.

7

Pangs Of Days And Scissors’ Joy I toss the glass and toast the hours —a velveteen stitched cross like knives— ten o’clock groans of yesterday’s mourning of tomorrow knit like scars the drunken couch now sails oh where are you to put me to wind I cry and tear at scenes at pens at pages and at You but never on these fluids do I find myself afloat in a red shirt I sleep in dreams of angels of the soul and find a dozing superintendent at my cold wet feet as springtime births unfold and fold again and again unseen unknown by the limpid soft decaying eyes beside

8

McNomials as parabolic fast-food signs; our love, a frown upon the hungry mouths that slew agape— the vertex of the sought for misery, definitions of design. you wore it like a fucking hat. now bag your lunch and serve a function.

9

Uncounted Cost Of Samaya

blood on the dorje, tears in the bell. loneliness invades my space with questions I should not need to answer. and so I stand with cramped knees and rearrange the wrathful puja— new beginnings, same old endings . . . why’d it have to go that way . . . incense fills my eyes— the smoke, I stand too close then walk away in circles clockwise counter revolution of the wheel of time, but won’t rewind the scene. I remember every stitch of it. . . . why’d it have to happen . . . for sanctity more than refuge, standing yet again before the multicolored rainbowesque display of wisdom’s power— I kiss the tail and face of time and sit beside my piety . . . why’d these prayers fail your pleas . . . i strike the drum for new beginnings, touch my skull to ground and so begin repentance turning but there’s 10

blood on the dorje, tears in the bell.

11

Biology we are cold architecture, drawn by unwitting fingers— meat and bone, drunk and full of ghosts, warm whiskey and misguided notions of creation’s absolution. intoxicated pantomimes, the quadriplegic speaks profanities and blasphemes to the sky— nickels in a straw-knit hat and dime-store memories. I laugh and fall, laugh and fall upon absurdity’s imbrue.

12

Corrosive Juices a bleak and drained end-time recollection came over me in a past life flash, and I saw the world, my death, in atomic collisions of time against space and me suspended between and wept. for now I walk and wrack my mind against my brain and watch as consciousness is squeezed like juice from the pomegranate fruits rolling at my feet. I walk past carts of citrus and sub-tropical fruits that tell apocalyptic tales in their patterns of color fragmented by sound. I cross the pavement, and pomegranates surround my feet and so my thoughts. nerves wired hard into the bright machinery of oblivion, senses plugged into the transformer of brain’s switchboard-daycrawl chemical reaction. I am a laboratory of glass apparatus and I smash the pomegranates on the empty street. seeds eject themselves in holy light, and I recoil with boots of disdain and want for more. I continue down the black-paved hill. visions again paint themselves on the windows of the mind, obscuring my vision through, and I have no choice but to sit and succumb to my death replayed— a fistfuck cinema, torturous yet captivating. I am 13

reborn and the pomegranates have rolled down the street behind me. I pick one from the ground and bite into the soft and soothing flesh full of nectar. the visions remain like ghost images on a powerless television and I weep again— not for any torment of the mind’s eye, but because these streets are empty and have been since before the notion of time escaped me in a chemical jailbreak. but now returning, I sit on the street-side and eat. everyone’s gone. the fruit is good.

14

Daydream the meat to dirt ratio has gotten out of hand. marionettes lay slackened on the stage. cadavers coat the floor; carpet filler masks the heaven— tapestries belie the sun, fall down fall down; there’s nothing left to do.

15

Down At The J And Flying something strikes romantic in a truck stop troll for pussy, dope, the night crawl stroll into that other. the goin’ in the 2 a.m. hours of the morn. diesel pump perfume trails lead to those hand picked ladies; prices never change (forty straight up, sixty half and half). no internet escorts, craigslist scams; trannies love to mug you ’til you learn to love it too. just pull in slow between two trailers, flick the lights off and on and pray, no dick. lucking out, you take home twenty minutes worth of woman. names like Valentine, Afroditey, Joy parade. you try to hold your face straight, count your cash beneath the wheel so she can’t see what you can’t pay-- look her over just a glance for new sores, fresh tracks . . . fuck it, ya say to save your eyes, pick the dish and pay your bill. tomorrow— you tell yourself, broke spun and driving her back— tomorrow gonna get me some Joy.

16

Album what are all these photographs but memories and dust of leaves hard pressed between; and sanctum where the present hides— gauge the eyes beneath veneer. tear the mouths of quietus, and pull asunder all that mattered, all that ever was so craven here to lie forever in the folds of candid, poised and wretched present being. a match to drop a piss to take and bellows of the smoke say cheese.

17

Playing Distance making snow angels in mine fields mind fields mine feels stranger than yours rising from the bed sheets soaked in regret but tears won’t fall when I’m up side down town traffic dulls the sounds of life and so my feet press paved wonder feeling like a monster born again again the pangs appearing in the ticking hours pressing on the everything I see and everything I miss now twisted hard . . . in the cold city rain. . . I remember the chill . . . flag down a cab . . . tell it to take me home.

18

Midnight Strokes piss-pools fill inside the eyes of your headstone; puddles quickly form around the soles of my boots, and disappear into the wanting Earth. it’s a long one this time— but I don’t really mind, my dear. you always were quite the sport: Happy Anniversary.

19

Hold ‘em the cards had laid out on the table, shuffled fifteen years or so— wrinkles in the stained veneer. the dealer left us to it. stale ring stains on felt, the glasses only half where full and empty, both resigned of definition, played outside the reach of tongues. and so the turn into the river; stalling had outlasted us who folded each with pocket kings, glasses made of sand.

20

Pick A Part ask yourself when palms are pressed: if life was just a pornographic S&M film facade on reels of time — Holy — what would be the part you play? and would you do, on bended knees, your own faithful stunts? “Jesus is coming!” shouts the director. would your face be camera ready?

21

Golem the automatic punctuation of the blade, the grammar of the heart, cold syntax of the worm’s wrought morsel— and memory betrays the wraith’s apt company sucked yet from the pillowed comfort: blinds drawn deafness; dumb and mute. the tongue flays naught but air into these words devoured still. and meat believes itself to be sole, less god upon the slab while puppets playing pantomime exalt the feast of taught oblivion.

22

Ten Years Of Marriage she watches Billy Mays and the Sham Wow guy— infomercial blur because she doesn’t care to change what’s on, she tells me while she waits for me to finish; she could do this all day. skilled hands sooth me well. until I paste over, with sniper’s calculated aim, the numbers of her credit card. I get some attention then—   all I really hoped for.

23

Void Transaction miracles and cold true lovers always been a dime a dozen. been staring at a bag of nickels; thirty years and goin’ ain’t never gonna see the change.

24

Words Of The Un-profound these notes are just obscene. to feel that no one listened or ever understood your words, you force them all to read your mind fuck of grievances threaded with apology. they’re really all the same, these swan songs to enlighten them. these things are not profound. you said it all without a pen, without a word spoken to all who walked into that motel— shower stall walls crying red, strange feelings ‘neath the feet of those not navigating well the mind field left before them. screams. yeah, you said it all, and still you left this note. what exactly is your deal? if you’d have said it outright yesterday, even I would have listened to you. or did you want to be a writer, forever published in tile grout, lacking what it really doesn’t take to do well, you opt for this— a captive audience finds this shit so . . . moving, 25

but only for a while. you were no fucking Dickens, and your final words will one day be filed under “T.” if I had to do it . . . I mean, if I had to write one just to show you how it’s done and kill eternity’s time a while I’d write, “the only thing I’ll miss is beauty.” but I already do, and so am done.

26

Wet staring at each other in the dark and dumb— macabre Marco Polo games. we drown by each other’s feet.

27

Remnants Of Trash Day old box of polaroid, dust collecting, memories of what most try to forget. closing gently the disjointed lid, bile choked the throats of the third. pupils grew in seconds. a cold wind visit to the first of three that lived in the home, serviced as called. the illusion lifted— shattered as the head torn off the beast, no safety in the blood remaining. looking at each other, the wonder of reproach bounced among the second. security leaves the third as evaporated milk; it was never really there in whole. and all are bound to the old dirty box. the head of the beast, mounted to the tainted eyes and growling inhuman sounds, watering eyes unsettled— a tongue that carries no human words, a constant stain in the woven tread and tapestry of generations, there untouched when death, as unintended, sends no maid in after, simply because he removes the waste.

28

Hallmark salvation is a long hard choke. the words of repentance and of crime committed by narcissism’s false yet coy regret are all but poems in dead men’s throats. we breathe because we lie and lies like comfort, gasping at the one that could ever be the last; and play the guile, prayers on the lips— the dying mouth the rotten breath the clutching for the comfort of the last, not knowing, wicked words spread like so much fucked and eaten disease

29

Chasing Whispers spiders grow and spin their time; winter rain— the homeless foe, our hero hangs on tensile thread of silken venom. desire to be lost. through lenses warped, the eyes can see not one piece of reason for the trying of the game. defeat, though lost and so unknown until now, feels as much a down. let rain fall, watch the scatter of deserting legs. he shuts the eyes— plucked delight or cello strings, the tune is played and ears are bent— bent in the cold remembering acceptance of defeat of long-ago’s and what they say into bent ears of heroes hanging on the whisper of waiting, remembering, and trying for the spiders of intent to weave a motion or direction, to place the mantle of desire’s nest beneath the feet. the lens is cracked; winds are chased by the means and ways of making motion toward the often lost decision 30

to spin the fresh geometry anew in spite of villains, heroes, spiders, or time.

31

Nothing Will all she said was just because and left the door ajar. a wisp of satisfaction in the air that trailed behind so many years unraveled in the braids tied in her hair, knots of discontentment’s joy and pangs of guilt for doors left open leading nowhere too. and all we left behind became the all we ever were. — and how the parted ways of footsteps carry so much more than flesh and bone, the separation; apple from the core . . . however rot, the daftest day, lays waste before the eyes and hollows where the longing dies, nesting of a nothing for.

32

Three Fifths Full the fingers dance the fingers tell the fingers know the stringed lies they’ve played in dollhouse trances, tiny curtains made of silk drawn to show the the mess you’ve made inside you hang a shameful brow.

33

Consumption everything we could not reach and all that should have been are now the saw-cut pieces of the nothing we’ve become. reality is not the touch of severed ties mended. this real is not for our definition, and Webster too would be so brazen; words are tumors, letters cells, and flesh devoured by labeling thought— and all you thought was love is cancer.

34

Stripped Of Title serving time inside this vacant hall of cells alone — far outside love’s jurisdiction. convicted in absentia for savageries unleashed upon the frailty of Mind itself, all prejudice withheld, unrepentant. I recount my charges well: flayed my tortured nerves exposed with instruments of terror, battered hard with rocks and pipes the brain of matter gray; it cried and so into it poured my vengeance well, and with the cold wretched hand of molestation, on my senses laid until so twisted hid their faces shamed into submission’s blank facade of tainted glances. to all of this I have confessed; in Here — no echoes for my absolution; none for which I seek. in Here I rot without decay: that promise made from flesh to men that even through morbidity anguish too must take its leave and putrid blossoms make of us whose torments wring our skulls of sweat, more so than the fears of hell, lies of heaven sold in trust. 35

limpid so I wander down this corridor of time, to settle firm inside my cell erected, raised for these alone, my sins, nay crimes contained; within these coldest walls conceived. night falls without notice. day and dark alike withheld. my eyes no longer strain, so conditioned to my present state. I turn the glass to count the hours, watch the moments pile, one upon the other; grains of empty time betray my passing and I long to touch them, feel the slip, know that I am really Here. resigned, I pull the blanket of phantasmal weave to sleep as I once did before to dream, but consciousness alone there is. these cells will never let it go. I walk these halls in memory’s chains, chains of time unbroken.

36

What We Have Beside is forgiveness sought for absolute, is night’s resolve to shine on us replete with satisfaction of the shadow? wherefore do the tides pull lullaby moons from heavens torn and pulled asunder by the storms birthed here on cold Earth’s ground? the skin is parchment, blood as ink and memories binding leaves of sin. and counting breaks hard on the surf, the spray of salt births seasons’ toil. springtime waves the sea goodbye and sorrows like a broken wing, take their flight anew against the better known.

37

Immortal Blossom death is but a part of what we need when we’re in love’s breath fettered grasp. life betrays the silence in the strings we play upon with no derision. watching autumn leaves clichés— clichés that bind the eyes. breath drawn across the line, and so to dance, the deed is done in vacancy of destitution. flowers bloom behind a lash of final curtains fallen.

38

End Of The Chain am I the only moments that you make yourself of? take back the watch rewound to better hours. gears bent ticking hearts; the minute of dismay, the hour of intent, the days of stained regret stamped hard on faces bent into the morning’s break. second hand sentiments passed into me from where you hang. did you speak so easy to yourself in darkness of the falling noon? was it pain or love or hand-in-hand; head-in-heart, arms around the thistle bush— am I the only moments that you pass the time into?

39

Stainless Hearts whatever I have, I use right away. whatever is gone, I only want more. 32 Valentines burn on the table; blood grows thick in the fire. desire in the touch of the flame; the growth of the dead, the death of the pieces growing apart, undoing and doing over the scene. wretched my ways; the repent of the blade, no absolution found in what I see here. damnation for taking the last of the breath from she, who gave all and touched the point and edge of my love— desire so heavy and thick— unmasked . . . 32 Valentines burn on the table. but hearts moist boil in the rolling steam, tears of the moment and the many to come remorse is no exit, no exit for all, but ties to the deed— a tether to this present forever. the point and the edge, the touch of the blade, the rear view smoke, the screen of confession: whatever I have, I use right away. whatever is gone, I only want more. 40

Of You your face and eyes, a fistfuck drear— dead pounding tears and vapid loss of breath miscarried; evident of joyless rage, the ghoul who feeds from vampires’ light, a claim staked on the heart, dead territories marked and drained by masquerading gaze and presence wrapped inside the suck of nothing left behind.

41

The Score out smarting I.Q tests was a hobby of mine. finding ways to beat them . . . I took the test on crystal meth and scored higher than my norm. I took the test on mescaline. no score was recorded as it showed itself to be an orange. I took the test drunk, scored low but saw some merit to it anyway. I took the test while smoking crack, but only wanted more tests by question # 3. I took the test on ecstasy and scored a mouthful of number-two, yellow wood. I took the test on smack and saw how beautiful, languid, and empty it was. I took the test on thorazine and just shuffled through the pages. for all the years I tried to beat the test, it seems now that the test has beaten me. 42

The Wash she cried beside the laundry. the sound of change that hit the floor was amplified by flannel blue, piled high and needing. the orphaned gaze of tired eyes, fixed onto their shattered lids and hapless in the afternoon. the broken heart, phantasmagoric play upon the reaching hands; no clothes could hide nor even touch the wounds of make-believe. and ghosts pretend to see us in the shades of our disquietudes.

43

Stranger Each Time what is this thing I have just made love to? where is the love that I have just made? how can it be I have come without knowing when I took leave of the joy that I kept? why did we lie on a bed without speaking; I tried to untangle the tongues of the failed? who is left of each of us spending our selves on each other like change?

44

Can’t Waltz our hands upon the keys fell discordant where you dropped my brow. the ring played doppelganger to the muse. flowing rivers of regret, and melody like roses fallen by the tides resounding— and maybe every line between the spaces told the rapt, beguiling truth; gone deaf beneath the stars and dumb beneath the moon, and we to leave the pounding hammers where the footfalls took to dance, and shine on memory’s mirrored floor.

45

Of The Need kill the dawn it’s time to cry pull the shades and want knowing nothing else but what the fire speaks upon the lids of Hell’s time forsaken eyes.

46

Orchid a blister where a heart once beat and pustulant from every pore, weeping. the fork in the steak, the knife in the hands of children hungry for the meal not served. and so I seep and all the more dead muscle pumps on cue, reactionary gristle of the veins that knew a better time when we all feasted well on morsels of the love we slew, deep portions of the wrath engaged, a menu fit for knaves of kings.

47

Orange I left you an orange and ran out the door. I ate mine in slices in traffic and imagined you digging the peel with your nails the taste served as the kiss there was no time for. I was in the meeting when I got the word, arriving too late just in time to see them stop and call it. at your side my tears rolled 48

down your cheek. I leaned to give a last kiss and tasted forever the morning’s orange.

49

Watching scarecrow in the fields I make, unwholesome crops watched over by; you pull your duties well. I’d raise an acre in the name of fortitude, if such soils did allow. the sowing of the harvest, the reaping of the seed is all this planter knows to do and fertilize the feet that sink in mud becoming home to impasse toiling. scarecrow watching me here rot, calling buzzards to the feast laid well I am no crow and shall remain.

50

Treasured I hold your head in my caring hands— your face, a sunrise on Winter’s day. your hair like fields of golden wheat and eyes as ponds, limpid reflecting and serene. until I put you back upon my collector’s shelf.

51

Violet the pillow of the coma, black eider down blanket wrapped like taffy on the dead and stupid stick of presence; feckless smiles into the void, grins of enterprise wasted. but there is something notwithstanding— the persistence of the long track back where breadcrumbs, gone, once marked the path to conscious reengagement of the senses. however many you may count this time around.

52

Watching The Fall I stay here still, familiar watching fall the cold September rain. hearing, smelling, watching memories run like veins, beaded on the glass of back door’s frame; I feel the soft pound, wet and season’s passing— hair stands tall beneath my sleeves. this time I tell, made wonted by one way. I’ve come to know the herald of the cold September rain. remembering how, in childhood’s noninvasive joy it felt like magic, made the blankets of all things wrapped around us feel so new and insularly, warm, protecting. and the adventures of the dash we dared to make from doors of parents’ cars to porch fronts, conquered island caves; unbolted, ducking safe inside. so many years ago when youth taken light, washed in vain forever away. and to this day you still come here, cold acquaintance seasoned, old. yet very much apart we’ve grown; the digging and the piling of the distance and of years, wrapped around a spool of Autumn’s thread. and beating on the glass again; the door, now just a door, 53

tightly bolted, safe, secure. friendless time between us now— and old friendship fraught. please leave me be without your keepsake loss. the cold, bereft of any comfort, only stings and rain, I fear, now falls for much less certain reasons.

54

High Time there were wicked eyes all dancing underneath the sleeve and hairs as lashes batting in the dark. there were ancient rhymes on tongues of stain and fading in the echoes where they found tomorrow. this is where the face and tail kiss without the pain of knowing separation. it is hollow here. this is where the lost and found of yesterday pay due respect; tomorrow’s wanting, lost for now.

55

Knock, Knock there’s nothing deeper to these words than the ink upon the paper. these words won’t make you think of new ideas, in new untangled ways, or make you feel anything at all that you don’t already feel. but keep on reading please; I promise not to entertain or captivate your imagination. it’s you that puts the good stuff in where only shallow words exist. so feel what you need to feel and think for yourself awhile, entertain the soul by means of your 56

own grand invention but please leave me out of it.

57

Bad Code the soul is but a beta version of mind, crashing hard against the obsolete flesh and imperfections of design. philosophers have all lost their heads the clergy have misplaced their hearts and reality’s cold firmware boot has woken instability.

58

Harder Than Time the softening of the heart is halted sure by rigor mortis. the rules of decay are simple, nonnegotiable. flies with angel wings deliver eyes unto the glory in the circus of the ticket redeemer. ink pours hard onto my page, broken into shards of what the stitch-lipped cannot say to me in words, forever buried in the wasteland of the hour glass tipping. the foul and empty vessel— I lay it on its side to pause at least this process moving forward. all I want is peace, but vacuous minds believe in peace without death’s hard negotiations.

59

Beggar’s Clothes I can be your sole believer. I can kneel beside your bed where impish hearts grow bold beneath a starry down. I can take up arms to demons taunting you with masquerades, charlatans that peddle fright. and I can be beneath the shell, the prize for all of pity’s due— the one who stands where others’ prints had fallen prey to failures bitten. I can lift the earth to shade your eyes where sun is harsh and unforgiving, letting none intrude upon the solace of your quietudes. I’d raise the foils of the war to show it can be done. I can bleed the stone of callousness of all its wretched misdemeanors. I’ll tame the beast into submission with a nod of evidence. I’d entreat upon this enterprise, yet never be the one who was— who ever could that be. 60

Again The Flowers Baudelaire, I dreamt of you in angel’s arms and glory. you drove me mad and glad to be so. Baudelaire return. I write this page but no one sighs of vapor pissing’s cold, languid in the breech of time; the eyes play for the blessing. touch me and I’ll stop this, feel me and I may go on— lies that turn the face of the clock, idle hands jerk the devil off. and so the wanting passes by the daydream of a lustral flower, while every moment of the hour spits the joy of evil seeds again.

61

Dislocated Cells inside the house there lived a fist swinging at the walls of air— dumb ghosts and black-eyed ghouls, no victims. windows cracked in broken panes, shattering the sunlight through, and plaster dust clouds, the ceiling shower, walls, and floors, and rooms of nothing. the fist grew old but never died. the children moved to Kansas where they watched for storms from trailer-parks and prayed all day for rain.

62

Tears And Tatters the scar that fell upon your breast runs the full, mephitic length of time to cry. the tears, the rent in fabric’s woven shelter where we’ve fallen . . . before the doorway standing small, the child, orphaned by the movement of cold hands upon the face reflects into the mirrored floor where eyes belie. a madrigal upon the tongue, strolling as a maiden sure. and so the lash of step and stride runs purity to the well to drown beside so many tossed out wishes. so the day remains the same as once the trip of costly voyage gentle made into the task at hand so broken by the means of terror’s play at what was paid in full by loan, shattering the bride’s dark token.

63

Pi there are days I don’t remember the nights I can’t forget, at times a wish for never having dreamed the body of the coin; tossed and null between the heads and tails— the rationed flesh upon the neuro slab, binary. tables won’t compute the stains however repetition ends.

64

Cancerous Sonnet For A Tumor I shall collect as many cancers as my body gladly holds. let the tumors run wild in an orgy rife of death and living decay. I’ll take no chemo, watch no diet, opt for no invasive surgeons. to writhe in agony of the body’s own consumption of self is my calling and I heed the grim toll, collected from my flesh in pounds. survival of the fittest, and the winner here is obvious— not medicine, nor therapy, but black crawling cells devouring the weak. strong enough to put religion back in most, they thrive. I will take the glory upon me; I call to it by every means discovered as of late, and do so with no god if only to prove the uncompromising Darwinian truths, eaten, black, pontificating from the deep velvet closet. let me be an example so hideous, you’ll not want to touch me again.

65

Letters And Words I’m sorry I had to ruin your day. I am the apple in the worm, rotten as the cells inside your head. I am the hours lost in endless battles with the trailing remnants of your joy. I am the tears that lubricate your prayers. The ass of god is all you’ll come to know. I am the pain you love to kill and bottles empty, broken-the spoiler to the latest bible, trailer of you film’s last reel. I am the laughter in the crowd that strips you of all solitude. I am the everlasting rain and dead men’s poems, and the reminder, as we trudge on through the sewers of heaven, that there’s nothing waiting on the surface. 66

I am everywhere and can not help, but I’m sorry I had to ruin the day with you.

67

Crypto Amorphous growing fearful of queries and speechless now to a higher degree; silence seems the cost of wisdom. maximum security, minimally secure— no watchman taking overtime for shifts in the slant of lustral night. places in the realm of thought hold tight liaisons wrapped in shroud, and spiders write the glaze of time. casting over glades— childhood’s memories of rhyme are eyes though lost so easily become. the regenerating quagmire of cold spun regret. Eden’s gates sway in breeze of acrid ancient moan— stones fall from the path again.

68

Suck become a surgeon, eat a hot-dog, fuck your wife in dull boring darkness. do something else because this poem doesn’t get you, and you deserve a better deal than time spent here on this. masturbate to Disney films, Donald duck never wears pants, but this poem does— it won’t arouse an animation deep inside your head. big black ears taped to your skull and words that don’t even rhyme. why are you still here?

69

Just Another Crack Poem the sun rise pushing as you come down; the powdered table glorified— now wretchedly reminding how the clock spins hours into this, the joyless morning sound. birds whistle broken glass into your ears and sleep so far away— the distance grown between the high and low now magnified, reflected by the razor on the table; nothing left to cut, and the morning bird sings elegies; you play the tune as well.

70

Garment the scarf you wore the day I left was only brown. affection’s gifts have unfortunate and lasting design, and can not be returned in full. cotton, dye and desperation woven in a sash of sentiment and spoils of the heart’s costly war; the scarf you wore the day I came was only red.

71

Wakeful every instance of waking is as a birth, not beautiful, blessed nor full of joy. but bloody, hard— a squeezing shit into the day as painful for me as it must have been too long ago; done. and age is measured not in years but by the dose of epidural dreams must take to evacuate you from the pain of their own knowing.

72

Plasticity take this face, peel it back document what you see deep behind the mask of day take these eyes, pluck them with a fork so dainty that see no morsel of darkness take these ears, cut them; hear the cries so quiet wept from tears asunder shed cut off this nose, out this tongue, splay this empty throat with child’s fingers— grind the bones into a paste and mortar for to put it all together, if ever it was.

73

Coming And Going the masturbatorium tile grout floor, an estuary of premature abortion. the big bang theory applied. we take it all and leave a nothing full of births unknown and never coming to fruition here. but there was beginning, timeless as the cross-eyed watch maker’s tears and we fucked it up; bastards all.

74

Lost Children the cradle filled with sand withstood this hundred years of lapping surf but castles moist have fallen to the feet that tread ‘neath bucket hands, shovels bury memory where clams are dug for oyster pearls pennies lost where old men trod with sweeping strokes of polar waves becoming the lapping surf itself as aged, lost in rippled sand of its own making.

75

Referee where were you when we all fell down, the posies in our pockets wilted— cells on flower stems and dying as we here. where were you when we hid and sought your love, benighted and ashamed of us, your children never freed by light. where were you when we plugged ourselves by wires into television games and rot; where were you when we spun the wheel, and placed out bets on something better? you were there, the silver ball bouncing. red or black; it didn’t matter.

76

Marching Orders I have not laughed in so many lives it’s anger’s blade unsheathed that brings the smile to my lips again. I puke at my own destitution of joy, and swallow well the waters of my bile. rising up to take my life back in these hands so sewered. no tool by which to lead the revolution of my time, ticking like the blade against the gnashing teeth of hours slain. winding up the soldiers’ toys to fire rounds through square heads, I sheathe the swords and opt for bayonets.

77

Morning Cancer she died in St. Louis, and I had breakfast here in Jersey, witless to the time-zone separation one / from another. maple trees had bled for me— the marrow of a healthy trunk flavoring my morning’s wake while aunt did die forever. I ate.

78

Pulling Feathers night has been lost to day’s wide waking song and I, now stuck between two worlds lament the passing. glass reflects the time but not in two distinct and friendly pieces, making sense of change. so the bullet, so the sparrow both must drop and witness fall— morning is no friend of mine, no elegies I’ll sing at all for what so mocks me in its passing.

79

Communion there was jesus wrapped in brass. when trigger pulled, eyes like flesh, dropped curtains, he expected to know the coming of the lord at last, but there was nothing. the sermon on the wall, the writ of human suffering. pool of blood not turned to wine and brains of matter; nothing more can pray to nothing.

80

Waiting For A Message I check my mail every two minutes, waiting on a message from a girl I never knew. but she knows me and why won’t she write, knowing as she does how I wait and wait and wait? smoking butts off the ground and drinking the air— this life was custom built; I stole it, and it chafes in all the wrong places. train wheels on a steam-rolled line, I spin beneath the weight I carry, never stop to feel the pressure bearing down on every inch, every tie in this track I see, but never where it runs nor where it’s going to let me off safely.

81

We Had To Put The Foot Down we tore our eyes to stop the blindness, scarred our face with knives of shame, choked our breath to stop the screaming. we lay in dirt to feel the timeless warmth we took, mistaken for the kindness sought beneath the son. we did not care nor did we bleed the tears— the taught contrition for the longing to escape the generation of the sickness we were spreading.

82

Another Problem lie to me on that bed we made of anger madness and love split the difference in your favor I never did care for change but don’t tell me what you think I might so dearly wish to hear I fucked you and that’s all I think I can handle for a Wednesday night.

83

Dark Recess there was a bullet on the playground; it didn’t have a name. it didn’t have a home. it pretended not to care. it didn’t have a birthday. — no one sang to it at all. it didn’t know what it was for. it came from darkness of the barrel. it found a home on pavement ground. it made a friend along its way. Johnny was his name— now he has nothing too.

84

Hokum raise the blade but drop the act. it’s over, and must be not merely of the camera’s click click reel . . . bloody spools rewind the frame so take your place; props are ready for the action and the damned hesitation of the cut.

85

Growing Young abducted by the space where shadows lie and wait to scare the old with laughter and with joy. this penance held in protest’s palm with no escape. like Gacy’s basement garden grown, youth now buried, clown’s delight— but children do not frighten well, lacking cellular-rot insight.

86

Smiles In A Room I traced angels on your eyebrows. you blew smoke rings at heaven, neither of us knowing what the paupers took from god, and giving back a stroke of mind, we died and left the paleness of the world behind us wanting the return of its heroes a postcard stamped eternity— lipstick smudges where no one cared to look, and smiles no one understood.

87

Reexamined it’s the year of our lord and Nothing has happened. after birth an Emptiness exists where life once grew. death plays on like dart board cork the breathing moments, counting score. and Nothing happened, more profound than everlasting life; saviors aren’t built to die for if they were we’re in for shit.

88

Bounded In A Nut Shell jerking off in a plastic cup and hoping I don’t miss this one— so damn distracting this, the cup’s precise and definite occupation of precise and definite god damn space. fuck it; I can’t finish like this, the bottom staring up at me like big blue eyes waiting for the cashing in. but dead— this empty hole laughs, has no place in space nor time, but holds it nonetheless inside of textured dixie walls. I cry out grunting spawning tears and fill the world with one more sadness, all unfucked and filling up my time.

89

Divide By ZerØ mathematics of cadavers, indivisible by sin, draw functions of the flesh binary processed modes of thought and being. nodes of Emptiness derive the sum of waking days— divide by zero all become at once the nothing.

90

Union Heaven has declared a strike and Hell is falling like a rain forecast to flood my eyes again with screams, with cries, with all you ever gave to me, all you ever threw away. as lightning forks, fire the moon; the rush to finish all I’ve got before the joy is taken, time— as it goes, the roof is leaking. no patches for holes I’ve made, no way to refill what has gone. so sell me back, and pawn my smiles. they never were my own, you know. they make believe the sky is ours, as rain smacks hard your casket. how I wish to give it back, oh how to cheat the crawling time.

91

The Space That Makes The Past let us sit, compare the scars we’ve drawn across our skies like charted constellations mapping history of supernova lust and rage, those galaxies born in dark disquietude. the nighttime sky will never love us— no regard for the red-eyed pleading placed upon its tarp like prayers we make to naught but our own stark and ignorant begetting minted dimes on fairground glass, the skeletons repelling lye— pulling on a chain I make the play. a silver-tarnish cloud inside the eyes— bewitching; the emptiness between the dust, the stirring of the light. the mind’s nebulosity pervading, empty and becoming, solely by the shine that filters through. so let us sit, and gaze at stars, forget the impasse we’ve entreated. wounds are made on history and history is read by what’s been healed, what did survive.

92

I Tried To Save The World the cancer on your lips was spreading lies, infectious and beguiling. and so I planned a means of making ends to what you bore inside a tumor’s womb, capricious in the treacherous toil— a vomitorium kiss. however you have made your way this far into the world of men, rewound upon the reel of righteous indignation it’s become. slaughtered by the juggler’s knives, dismembered by the blade, extracted, torn asunder; left to rot beside a highway— slowly steering into me.

93

Forgotten I placed the stems of all your cold and wilted songs into the ground and watched them die. a dirge of filth played low— and all the children cried a springtime tear. plucked as strings upon the lyre, petals falling begging joy, touched and found their composition moving toward crescendo’s upward piling, for naught as death sat high awhile. bulbous baselines ran the full bed of where the pieces lie, planted joys, the sorrows’ ends again find silence— places, foot unshod nor stepped by eyes.

94

Xmas Morning I hate the way my cigarette tastes when you’re mad and I’d just eaten your pussy confusing smoke unsatisfying as I pace the cold of your front porch, fingers stained and tapping not sure if I was wrong not sure if I was right not sure of anything here in the dark winter’s cold morning chill with presents yet unwrapped beneath the tree.

95

Clear Cut I’d lay a forest for your lone pine box. trees are far less odious than your sight, less offensive to my sensibilities; for I am a sensitive man on days less like these. but I’d sacrifice them all to rid the planet’s roster of one more asshole. for unlike trees you’re non-specific, far too common. the trees that stand the forest green, though bent for slaughter in dignity’s name and indignation, stand for nothing but their foliage, while you stand tall, the assholes all— and must be laid in six-foot pine.

96

Re-entry Burns people find me to be a good idea when they’re drunk; the morning’s pavement too often proves otherwise. I won’t bite too hard if you feed me well enough, and my poems aren’t so shitty as to warrant this unlicensed therapeutic discharge from the thoughts and disbeliefs of your soft little home. so let me back inside and I won’t bother the curtains or scribble on the walls too much. but consider an ashtray here where the rug lies, I won’t be held responsible for your asinine indiscretions, butts crammed in the cushions of an otherwise perfect love-seat.

97

Split The Difference am I the Devil or the crossroads here where dead men’s bones unburied turn their faces in to make the deals they lost again; the bloody act, the play of meat bereft of sense and toiling thought, comes to an end where dealers and directors close the house. yet standing at the fork, the tine of destinies foreclosed, I try and make the sole discernment— the crossroads or the Devil here?

98

Hydrogen, Oxygen, And You it’s Doomsday on the television; bombs rain from my eyes. braced for impact, so I weep, the forecast, bleak and short: cloudy with no chance of tomorrow’s ever wanting to see us again.

99

The Measure Of What Matters I am the anti-ISM. come blow me with your rhetoric— your propaganda plays on me like badly directed porn; my dick is hard and I’m not sure why, so put your mouth where your bullshit is and swallow. I need relief from what you’ve stirred: the peace of mind and sleep I’d chased. I won’t be bothered by the left, the right, the wrong, the plastic middle, manufactured truths like smut I can’t make myself to entertain. but yet I’m up, and though not listening, feel your words play shadow-box upon my ears. so blow me with your rhetoric. suck this taut and righteous dick of all its indignation. I am the anti-ISM, my only stance is strong pro-ASM.

100

Again And Again lie down where the grass is cold take the clouds in languid eyes and breathe the airs of bitter winds, lustral like the censer’s swing for no one’s coming ‘round today. the picture of your silhouette, pressed into familiar ground, the waiting finds you lonesome bound on rails of steel laid one way— gone. your ticket punched, invalidated trips. kiss the ring and send it off into the promised closet like the grave, so saved you wish to feel your soul but clammy hands yet clutch at fear rosary of thorns, cold until the warmth of rot.

101

What You Will With It the polished light sagacity— electric eyes, static in the loud and wild wiring of circuitry’s dominion. open doors are a child’s invitation. the hinges of mechanical tincture work slowly on the fixated volumes, and oiled; as the slip and turn as the time entreating five as the sixth, the seventh, the eighth collapsing, closing, folding hard upon the brilliant naivety. and child’s play, a thousand miles gone from the punctuated grind, now the fraught privation to stop the doors from consummating locks and divorcing keys from nuptial smiles as the joy of youth and all its senses wired disappears behind the shadow of the broken circuit’s age.

102

Disengaged alone together in the still of night  where ghosts are frightened and children born we clutch each other’s hearts and pull a tug of war no winners here. as each gives in to the gravity of pain but won’t let go, the memory; we cry the scene—  replayed again, our drama wrapped on reels of time, spinning out of control. our bloody fists reengage 103

the clutch and push the throttle, drive towards the child’s eyes that only ghosts can see.

104

Long Distance Toll there is a telephone ringing, old-fashioned, black worn dial, and grotesque handle shaking to the bell’s hard rattle of the air surrounding— disturbance calling me from peace; the only real peace I know and never question. but the big black motherfucker demands an answer and never stops ringing.

105

Making Change it’s Wal-Mart, 3am— I stagger inside, my pockets ring with Chinese currency bought on e-Bay— breath so heavy with Kentucky bourbon, and I refuse to leave, in plain drunken protest until I’m sold a garden rake at the fair and considerable rate of exchange.

106

Travel Logs for all the breaths taken to fill the balloon, it deflates in the quick turning of a boy’s daydreaming eyes. limp rubber of a joy laying dead on the floor. no more trying for that top shelf high reach, promised in mirror’s fortunetelling light. hands are washed of all that stood to tell with promised eyelids hawking loud a bill of goods . . . . . . gone foul in transit.

107

Extinction Season with the deed to heaven in thieving hands and an angel’s corpse beside, we hide; the parlous shame of what we took from prophets’ empty pockets— we tattooed the face of god with pieces of the war we shattered in damnation’s lapse of solecism. for the damned have taken the token of Time; the race is done— and no one keeps the pride and all is as it was, as it will forever be— carved by hands, of wings, entrenched in filth and mercy’s laughter hole. and so we hide in darkness, waiting for the end of what was done; an impropriety spun like thread, looming on forever’s woeful blame.

108

It Was Mary’s Choice and now we kneel and now we pray— before an altar topped in red plastic biohazard buckets full of tears misplaced in vain, for Joseph who had little say— she swore he wasn’t the Father.

109

Me And You I am the bullet in your brain, fired cold and buried hot; a steely tongue, your hand upon the cocked and triggered microphone speaking volumes into you. but me, I’m just a shell, empty but for the message, so loudly delivered— faster than a goddamn email valentine kiss.

110

Spectacles blood of the hawk, the dove’s wrought vengeance. talons on the sky’s white plumes. they weep a warm and sour rain from wounds unstitched and reengaged— cold spinning of the weather vane. so the ground, a downy drear bears witness to the spectacle, the sky released in foul delight. and we redress our heads and dance, beat the drums of leather skins, play weather-Man with side-kick souls unfit for network’s broadcast histories.

111

Whiskey Lips the moon doesn’t shine; it cries when it’s drunk— and we stagger down the hall hand in hand and singing cabaret, higher than we can lift our heavy legs or reach god’s top-shelf spirits— all bottled nice and pretty. but those drinks aren’t mixed for me or mixed for you either. tossing nickels on a plate of chicken grease, and thirsty for the libation, sanctified liberation of the parched lips praying on the level risen bread that feeds our guts like the sorry, sad, and cracked-nut-bowl; salty on these whiskey lips, dirty glasses roll the clouds around the eyes, crying white against the broke black label sky tonight.

112

The Loss it hurts too much, the scratching rain upon the itch for what’s been gone longer than time it stayed, longer than the hands held time— and leaving with the springtime folds for births beyond the reaching grasp of sorrow’s guilt, of yesterday, of all the time that could have been a home to that which in me died.

113

All Framed Up let me shoot you like a porn star, lace-knit stockings that run down to your black, patent leather heel shoes tilted up into the face of god, stiletto arcs trace smiles where the last of daydream’s fantasies play make-believe with eyes of wonder, eyes of lust and carnal intrigue. count the cash upon the table, cherry and unfinished. too many deals made to remember with hot and boiling precision. why did you come? why did you ask to ride in my strange and lonesome car? but here you are and what to do but wind back the acrid hands of clock’s beguiling, winding ticks of time, and fuck you like all the many more I’d bought and given use and sense of purpose to in the clench-fisted, foot-arched night and so the change is yours to keep this time around. 114

What For do I repent? —the slanderous blows laid on the brow or the vapid heart’s apologies that would play the mourning do? I lay where fists fall open and the rivers of the soul run dry. squab of the chair and waiting for direction coming not from inside here; these walls constructed foul and vomitous and eager for familiar derisions: the flay, the kiss, the rage, the tine of a feather —telling the softest of lies to the pretty and one-time bloodied-eye kiss . . . revealing all there is worth knowing. I rip the garments, this fabricated suit on barbs that catch at my soles on escape deep into a nothingness— a goddamn cliche´ because I no longer feel alive when I 115

hurt you with rapture of breathe in the blade then beg you, forgiveness: take back what you’ve made . . .

116

In On It there was another a death in the family. no one laughed, no one smiled wide— no one gave a last knowing chuckle as the joke went on, played on each in silence bound; as their punch lines all had yet been delivered.

117

Hard Swallow a bottle in the corner stands offensively full begging from me a lesson in manners.

118

Let Me Be don’t wake me up tomorrow for repeats of my yesterday. don’t wake me up on Tuesday, Wednesday’s fine without me. don’t wake me up because it’s raining, it always does, and I’ve no say. don’t wake me up tonight at all my pulse is fine— green microsuede. don’t wake me up because it’s morning; for rising I have ceased to care.

119

Exhibition Matches in nights alone I pray to demons— silly playground double-dares entreating heavyweight bouts between the swinging fists of hell and the pounding of my heart. bring your worst, in earnest chants: you Motherfuckers, try and touch me. bloodied, face-down on the mat and smiling, I disregard the judge’s bell, having won all I needed.

120

A Boy Forgot To Dream One Night the first time Superman yawned as he flew over Metropolis, he knew the last of the best had been spent. red capes can’t make the sun rise fresh, however long you wear them. they just turn blue as the Earth below. and saving the day was a punchcard job.

121

Valentine’s Eve it’s the rope that hangs for no good reason— above the empty mower-gas tanks and tools, forgotten how to use but organized by shape and price; a place for everything but memories. knots in the stomach where the heart once felt something. dead muscle pumping fuel into the vessels of the eyes. a cold wet stare at the perfect knot . . . the February months like gypsy thieves, pick the days with guile until insolvent. how many now . . . lost the count at ten— ten years’ visits at least— no, more than . . . now to winter-tied slip hypnosis. swaying empty, hands reach, retreat, lose nail bed ground, disquietudes for a February Rose given ten, no twelve? years now; ago. and selfishness leaves the vocabulary of the moment, of this Valentine’s Eve. for self enacted death on anything of sense not made yields no prayers, and someone must be fit to call the angels from the twine; angels who birthed a Rose on Valentine’s Eve 122

leaving but a record that a better heart lives on somewhere. and pretending to arrange old tools with meaning in the shadow of a nylon swing’s ?thirteenth? birthday. — arithmetic is a function of the heart. it’s the rope that hangs for no good reason—

123

Each Of Us we are all just, each of us, waiting stains upon the face of time— and fading. wiped by the pendulum swinging, or piled into the hourglass bottom, hanged by the heirloom watch chain passed from granddad, wrapped around our throats— that’s all we are, all we could be. the ticking hands that push us through, mere instruments of gears that turn us in for crimes against the Night’s resolve to shine upon our dials.

124

What Day Had It Been wakeful I blink— the clues behind; the glasses fill the table one by one; the goblet stems raised quiet cups resounding the vacant sound of habitation, familiar in a way no two could know together. and dollops of the wine, the last not drunk don’t stir as even footfalls break the sound, not silence— but sound, of one who tiptoes for no reason. daylight, foreign to the curtained panes drawn in new dimensions, write elegies on parchment rays where dust once played and smiles beam as one in morning hours; once when lashes of the eyes did bear-trap dancers falling lightly, casting shades upon the toils of calendar pages turning.

125

Insertion kill yourself for me rape yourself for what I need from you to be the need behind the glass reflecting angels in the eyes demons in the mind gods of dime store nickel trash wasted on the breath consumed in gnashing teeth of all the trance bound dancers pounding on your heart they fall in full cameo of breath’s tide rolling becoming into what the high and low of living has brought to you a dead cat on the doorstep a song bird smiling pretty

126

Out Of Tune I dropped a pill on a guitar string. it rang dull and perfect C. I picked it up and played a bit the metal ran like jazz beneath my fingers and flowed with the melody of laceless pranksters on a halloween night. I put it down and wait a while, then strum D7maj— it sounds alright; the cat meows, she ate my pill.

127

Falling On My Refuge I tap danced on the vows I’d taken, broken every samaya, nineteen counts of murdering the heart and misdemeanors piled high. the mind failed every way to score the faults and fouls of imperfection. the mandala once holy, a castle of a child’s sand washed away with every lap of every wave of destitution’s bold and present surf. the bell stands empty, full of nothing; dusty is the dorje, wielded once in pious hand. the palm now waves a beckoning to refuge once I knew.

128

Little Toys let me stuff your happy meal, put a toy in your sorry bag so lacking any trace of prize or Chinese-made-wind-up-suffering, because your stupid kid is crying and he doesn’t know why, but he wants it anyway— because you first gave it to him in a fit that bothered you more than him, and now he’s stupid. so let me stuff that happy meal bag for you. adolescent Chinese factory death cries louder though.

129

My World Wide Open I dreamed I fucked the antichrist. the tattooed flaming pit of hell pulsed in waves and fits as He begged for mercy, cried for more; confessing into pillowed bent repentance, the reign He held, relinquished in the debts of joy— repaid on filthy knees and eyelids made of stone. I ruled the fucking world. I awoke beside an angel, broken; severed wings we lay upon— feathers of the joy She sold for love’s lone token, so She held me closely, whispered tongues unknown to loveless yet entreating souls. the night blew lessons through my ears and sleep came as a down absolution smiling.

—and so again I ruled the world, —the world I came to know again.

130

Refuge In The Now the compassion of wrath is hard and erect, dancing in the flesh of men with instruments of terror, wielding blades that smile and kiss the beating drum of wisdom’s pounding mind. the lasso of the throat pulled tight, the trident pitched into the song, the severed head of lying tongues now splayed from the body that fed the breath. to dance on discs of sun and earth, the bodies of beguiling sin and spin the fierce, taut net of truth is a long and bloody act indeed. dismember me! take my breast, my face apart. dissect the organs grinding out their foul, discordant tune. I seek compassion’s wrath today. smiles are the toys of an innocent’s sandbox game.

131

A Million Years a million years ago I saw the bright and varied feathers of time plucked from the last bird singing and laughed. thrust henceforth into a long and growing destitution wave I can not help but ride. I hate it and rebel. I fight the tides calling me ashore, the pull of moon’s long reaching arms. I spit upon the shores unforgiving, sand between my teeth and groans of salt filled lungs; laughter but a joke to me in surf ’s receding, loveless good-bye wave. the air is full of impish tines that pierce the night. a bird naked and ashamed to be my love flies overhead, laughing. I piss directions home in a younger boy’s fresh castle.

132

Wandering Thoughts when you buy into the night, the notion of fucking a contortionist who sells pretzels by day, the body tells the time in twisted acts you can’t perform without the groans of dedication’s itching aim, and aging inside of youth. and you try to make the pretzel girl, so pretty, framed in ankles, smile. the body just fails— designed to do so, aches of years amplify the mind’s callous prominence of one lone yesterday. the game is over and your balls just itch. and you see on her face, the wondering thoughts of want and disappointment. . . . mustard and salt can I help you sir . . .

133

Where I Sit And Eat My Mashed Potatoes every night my little dog shits in the same spot, in the goddamn kitchen. beneath a wooden chair pushed in he defecates with punctuality— I set the broken clock by the discovery and resignation. and every afternoon of the next day’s chore, I clean new turds from the cracked-tile floor. and every evening as the supper’s being served I take my place at the table. of the five wooden chairs circling the meal of meat, gravy, hot and steaming mashed potatoes, I choose where to sit— the same every time by the tick of the clock, the grace of the chair, and cross my feet ’neath my warm dairy-aire.

134

Cleansing I wipe the rim, the counter clock wise bowl of piss— ancient mantras on my lips Kurukulla Mahakala Kalachakra pearls. the toilet shines, water gifted to the Shakti Maidens dancing, fire on the lips of grace; the fans— bellows on the winds of bliss. I prostrate to the altar’s filth.

135

Rites Of Passage the skylark at the window singing shot with a pump style pellet gun spent, still sings in spots of grey and luminescent breast of gold on the ground beneath its perch. and a little boy’s contrition wells. the crying of a trigger-finger facade— aged by a handful’s years and dead now in a trident’s tine. the singing plays upon the ears, the trickery of time’s passing and how it makes plain the differences never understood. wings flap, the bird turns circlets; macabre snow angels in the dirt. a tear again and a pump of the gun.

136

All The World what matters to you is just a lie played upon the stage of time’s eyes. the actors have taken stage left, the curtain dropped and you don’t care. you don’t give ovation. I’m sorry I killed your little play with poorly written lines, but the fourth act revealed the toilet door and you but sat dumb-faced, slack-jawed and fucking stupid, awed by the third act’s bloody course. why bother anymore to show the real and fattened hog of nothing when, clutching to your ticket stub— a teddy bear dream spun comfort, you die and nothing happens. I’m through with screen plays penned for assholes. 137

Never Alone In My Toils I don’t want to be loved, I want to be fucked. I hate the giving game of trinkets, blankets and selves. it tires me to no end, thinking of the next day’s gift, laid at the feet of the one who loves some thing about me. I don’t want it. don’t ask for barter games today, don’t say you like my shirt; we know I wore it yesterday. the gentle hugs of the iron maiden keep me waiting on pins, and wishing I could reciprocate the act, I scratch my pants grown moist and tight. the blanket warm, pulled around me— never seen it before; it smells. and so tonight I leave, my maiden dear; your locks have fallen far too low.

138

Carted Away if my presence in your world is offensive, death is free of charge at the door, save your coupons for a better day. I didn’t mean to be so cruel nor batter hard your porcelain cove. I only came to see the face that hates the nature birthing machinery’s cold incontestable turning and replacing all you know with all you cried when you suspected, shown now in the globe of phantom’s eye you’re but a useless piece of lie.

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The Shame Of Her her mouth was but a slit where the pills fit nicely at 9am, at 3pm again at bedtime she swallowed every time though her preference was for spitting.

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Poor Statistic the victim of a violent spree, stray keystrokes through your brain, meant for the face of god but missing. the mark was off; it wasn’t me who fucked it up, they were merely misfired words that killed your pretty little life. and I stand above your soft and dying day; grocery list in a twitching hand, car keys fallen by your side. the fluids spent I see, however grammatically incorrect, on pavement where you stood, speak well the writ I made for him who does not answer messages more subtly made.

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Redemption I stepped into the confessional, saw the priest hanging dead from his cold thorny noose and an altar boy’s smile. it would be a once and last event for each of them.

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Battery my assault on the world begins with a fist. the mouth has no place in this revolution turning. I was dubbed an infidel in my own nation, a disbeliever of well spun lies and cast upon the slab of false repentance, bleeding. I’ve tucked my anger up inside the crevice of the blind and lost soldier’s sack, disguised amongst his ammunition, hidden well and waiting to be fired at the first head showing. I was never a vile nor violent man, created though by all I see, a wretched foul and righteous thing now walks in boots of ripe disdain. I’d fuck you all, the point of the gun, but useless as it lays beside. the rounds I’ve shelled my toils in are wandering the days in marching, high-step beats away.

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How To Proceed the pillars of my head have fallen, columns in my heart have crumbled the basin of my balls grown stagnant, flooded. the architecture of my thirty-one years— the poor design of a drunken hand. and nothing can frame this peace again. the cleaning lady laughs as she comes through these rooms so sullen; paint chips made of lead flake in her hair. replace the keystone, cracked and threatening; the arch is begging for one day more. another winter’s sunrise kisses fallen snow, the piss of a dog marks territories warm and defrosting.

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Bury Me In These Boots I stepped on your colostomy bag to see the stain on your shirt, the look on your face, the laws of fluid dynamics at their goddamn best. but no one laughed; it was just too sad for both of us. I’m sorry you died from my corny little prank, and I’m sorry, less amused, they buried you in that shirt.

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Shooting Vandals there’s a freckle-faced kid who lives up the street, shakes apples off my tree at night. I feel sorry for him sometimes; his parents are dead and his dog doesn’t love him. his mom and dad, on separate planes and busses met in the road on their ways to an anniversary reunion. a fiery wreck of wings and wheels was all they had for their “Steel Anniversary.” his dog is just a dick, there’s no excuse for him nor for the guilt I show when the little mutt humps my leg, not his. so when Freckle-Face is out at night behind my house, I let him think he’s getting on— his own little vengeance games. apples fall, the dog gets off, and I put my well-aimed .22 away. some gestures of revenge are just too poetic to kill.

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Instant Replay let me show you how I broke your heart. it seems that you’ve forgotten— here in my arms again, the machinery of land mine triggers. let me show you how I stole your youth. you’ve grown so old since last I did; and lamenting the days, you put a wet and wrinkled face to mine. let me show you how I played your strings. that tune, so flat and discordant grown, is heard once more by selfish ears, nimble fingers flexed again. let me hold a silvered glass to all we are, all we could be, shattered. cut me with the shards.

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Where Have They Gone where have all our superheroes gone, stripped from comic pages burned and laughing down the pillars of our dreams; they flew away from all this nonsense toil, with capes, with boots, with empty blazing crests of nothing. we long to have them back again in dreams because the world is flat without the flying high of childhood’s hope, but they don’t care. they sighed and smarter than we here left early. Superman’s been in an opium den Batman took the train out West and Spiderman is spun out somewhere . . . that was the word, last time they were seen by a hooker on the interstate hawking photos of our heroes, graphic and obscene.

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