poetry

rage bitch

moralistic baddies, this world was not made for you

nor you, rationalist time speculators & grass dozers

the impetus was always there, you knew the categories rote

and once noticed, the hot, hot air balloon within you rose

aching for condensation, a cloud or geyser or bird piss, anything

oil a bike chain and you have oiled your pant leg as well

the tattoo removal procedure had never meant to be had

loop exploration i will outlive you,

i will live twice your lives and slice the billowing fear out of every dough brought to rise

size and spatial distributions of historic sand

new roach killer with

antimiasmatic application

complicated my feelings about scented air

magmatic talus scree, the downhill creep

petrean mouthwash at the back of the tongue makes

me cough

honey locust oscillating bird families

river birds, the heavier ones living on

the ground with the anosognosian suburbanites

and who am i kidding, anosognosian urbanists too

wanting to live forever

bone crushing, waiting to feel like you

have the right tool, the right marbled base

flake core, pyrite & mica

he came in like the prince of bulges, bulging

in my memory, between halloween & new years & other padded thoughts

of sheer black and metal

the object in its plenitude, periphery non-existent

i extol the statue for having meaning this time

& yet cannot imagine my own self portrait at 28.

poem for listening, inwards, outwards

the morris dancers dance-in their hedonic light

and it was in this dream I forgot how to play guitar again, panicked

always in front of a blank faced crowd, boredom ever radiating, expectant and yet still checking their phone screens

the manicule, turned in on itself drops all,

drops its gaudy niceties and feels in its cuff for something blunter

shorting bloodflow for moments in the process

just upstream of this

always blurry, imprecise, the photography of language is perpetually

skipping around a field of the infinite flora

you cannot pick every vetch or lupin, new rot

splutches the whole of the lexicon, the clumsy and awkward

spiders dictating to worms, irrigating and missing the point

on local npr the host was wearing the face of

the neighbor on his stoop you always greet but never really learn about

in his urgent and gentle voice, he was sighing that

the price of jet fuel is skyrocketing and

the truth in art eliciting heart attacks, the truth in rock eliciting

blues and churches, the spiritual homes recapitulating

new roof, new dances, new stars in new years, keeps growing louder

how am i supposed to care about going into space on a rocket when

i can't even tell what couch will go best with my new sink cabinet

some have a knack for picking furniture in that careful way

thoroughly considering all from room acoustics, movability, the 15 year fashion cycle, aroma, cushion viscosity, mineral hardness and cleavage,

to the probability that the furniture will be suitable for a wayward visiting colleague or cousin, believe them when they say

this is the most important quarter-to-a-third-of-your-lifetime decision you will make,

knowing which sofa speaks to you in the poetry of atoms

taking shelter, a parking garage

the morose lettering at the bus stop merged together and untogether,

eyes practicing swiveling to meet a crisp clarity and coming apart into watercolored realities

and the letters in their uncanny forms secondarily reminded me of

the simultaneous sickness and health of being fully immersed

pulling away, there’s fresh mint green on the dome of the historic mental hospital

in a season of cruel, broken fatalism they briefly believed to be

one of the last few remaining places where love was not a performance

completely forgetting of the natural eros of sodium and oxygen

sweating and breathing through a cotton t-shirt

approaching the 92nd anniversary of 100,000 tractor day in Stalingrad

we’ve decided to give up on giving in to paranoia of the all-seeing eye

and invite it in as a warm friend to our everywakingmoment

i will put the fear in its prismatic, glistening cradle as there’s

no purpose for inspection, barring the futile fun of it

similar to cleaning your toilet bowl daily or reading sports news

all who are feeling stubborn about giving up on this are subject to tauroctony by starlight

optionally in private quarters at the slain’s request

where the gaps in the blanket’s threads become

consequential dreamers of sham cameras obscura

and in the green drone of the oscillating mono-legged floor fan is where I remember

feeling little in this way before

the frogs croaking sounded like the ice

dancing off the sides of his whisky glass, supervenient nighttime birds in March

prepositioning themselves in treebranches before they grow their leaves

i turned my head from the decomposing starling on the sidewalk

there was nothing growing here before, but the storm

yesterday was a wash and a strong beam of light after the ides

building a fire would have been

a small task for anyone with a magnifying glass, the crusted body

burnt and scent away as offering, don’t forget and waste the bull and don’t forget it’s

sheer coincidence I started this poem on the fifteenth

the multiparous fates, unending drone of rumination

it was straight hot viscera

333

colorwheel memory, turning on the wrong side, not the axel but more flippy

perambulating halo of your behest

i left something of worth at the table, for what it's worth

there were rosy traces of movement in the photos taken,

you took, he gave, a look at

me some digital copies that i wanna share

and i met you pre-laughter, i can't believe that comes later

nacreous gazing, first thing i saw when i awoke

feeling like scaffolding holding up something big enough to need it

what more can i say

the bogger

clipper of hummingbirds wings,

because he likes to watch them drop & tumble

because it makes him feel better about his sole pedestry or

inability to flock

because he likes the pop and feel the scissors make when they slice through the shaft of their soft emerald feathers,

who has grown to resent his high durability high grade designer foot forming genuine leather shoes

because they are not wings

because they will not carry him up higher and higher

because his feet are callousless and he is therefore bound to them to protect the only way he knows how to experience the world

who cannot truly enjoy the world that has so cruelly robbed him of the

relief of flight

because it would make him more palatable to his peers

because it would free him finally of all suspicion and paranoia

because wings would have fixed everything

because he could use them to really dazzle,

people could see the real him,

is closing his eyes, pulling the mud & peat over himself as he sends

one more text, "i know this thing

you do not know and this

is so bad you have

to pull out your scale once again

i pass this to you so

it's on you"

slow meaning

earlier he was on yourfuneralsongs.com

looking for a bit of inspiration

after they announced a new type of drought that has nothing to do with the well being empty,

kind of like rabies, he saw

red mechanical optimism in the sportive green look

they gave him while saying "i trust your digression"

and it made him uneasy for his grasp on wordplay & ability to come up with a good title

has always felt more like a wet handshake than a climber's hold

i asked a bowl of alphabet soup to compose a ranked list

of its top 10 albums and though slow,

finally to the surface gurbled the response,

"can i cheat and look at my phone?"

birds fired off the arthritic trees' limbs like expletives & they remembered that immediacy culture is winning & climate is dying

the student paper recommended meeting others on a dating app

and he wondered if that was like a social calendar or community board

st louis art museum

the glossology reveals itself inadequate to suit the emotion, unsuited

the words often can feel all lacking

persistingly cagey, charged and buzzy as it is, soda fizz in nostrils

and up even further behind the eyes

still i can mock this pen, bent in floppy rabbit effort

all chine no exoskeleton

a January bluejay laughs a song like a car alarm

still i am looking for words to better suit the circumstance

reckless and feverish, pulled from earth and revelational, rosy and stupid

just underpinnings like i observed

hot cement cornerstone and adorned with flat glassy marbles and chips of

teal bowl with design of fish (iran, 12th century)

again again again,

it’s like an aquarium, i like to look at it

it's in the fashion now to drive with your lights off

i dreamt i lost the world of sound

and everything was okay,

business was unusual, though continuous

the lightning stayed thunderous by way of the floorboards & shivvering windowpanes

whispers from friends became extravagant perfumery behind both ears

and in your way you brought it back too

you, at your most natural when on a walk

equine tread, breathing grass shown

in high school physics, a vocabulary,

waves and atoms piercing through a drum's memory

windburst, derecho, it all resembles water now

i remember

hang up your keys if you can find where you left them

and your coat when it's time to come in

modern day jilting

jolt, sorry i believe in passion (still)

beautiful endings, beauty's indefinite

couch surf, a heart, beat

the next

it's ok, really

a photograph is not true participation in the spectacle

a time and a place, and a time again

you know that

a flower's place was where it rooted

fruitbat, insectivore

3 memories where your eyes were shut

when she wrote heaven i find angel i found exactly what she meant

placing all fortune the palm of your hand

you tore apart the red plastic fish like jesus

not needing to know every thought that was spent

it's closeness in moments like lint, laundered

i count all the pigeons pulling bread from the snow

it's getting early, slow ways

like tired moths falling all this way and that

he ate one and it made me ill

couldn't forget it

so bright my world

missed the shooting stars

oh well still,

still lamplit and laughter fed

i'm forgetting what exactly it means to

be dog tired

you are there in your infinite energy and i'm here in mine

pinned to this grass hill and you nudge my chin upwards to look for it

i'm held solidly in the ecstatic, bug bitten & wrestled on a slope

it's anyone's advantage now

there is no sweet bread luring me, i can tell a story all night, i even forgot that there will one day be an end to all language and i forgot silence and i forgot i

necessity of reciprocity be a folk legend to incite fear of scarcity

whatever,

a feeling like this can ward off sinkholes and lawn chemicals for a very long time

autoproduction of the unconscious is what we're going for (AO collage)

familial constellation in action

nuclear complex

the inverse is negative and the problem is one of knowing

crush & repress, desiring production

the figures vary, symbolic imaginary

the social form is under consideration

a question of something better for us all

(all of us) the domain of the unconscious

the impossible real, what do you want

projectionist

it wasn't enough to flood the room with light, you needed more light

recurring themes

seen on TV vision

held like a caterpillar of society

climbing sickened locust leaves

carcass / phalanges

split the / differences

we should be so lucky

car scale, intersection

become image, that’s sontag, that's context

the wind puts fucking twigs tiny torn up bits of leaves into my eyes and it’s symbolic of nothing

cold tap screwdriver, looking out

running out of what you need but

i will never live to see the world give up

and i would give up everything just to

watch you crush everything

invasive species by means of accident and

wanting what’s best, inconsiderate, unbeholden to

care for existing flora and looking out for

inner beauty, not an evil, not malicious just

wrong place, wrong sentiment

this amalgamation assumed

it knew the culture, yeah

indirectly and when

exiting, become your disappointment

what did i replace, destroy

and is the spiral expanding outward or collapsing in on itself, subsuming, assuming

i broke it, i replace it

the flower is a sex organ and i wear it all over my shirt in a volatile way

hey moth, come eat the flower

On reciprocity as r(u/a)pture, or disillusionment

i smiled at a baby and a dog in the park today

and got what i deserved, going too fast to see

on the way

the deer impaled on the mausoleum fence

at work, now it’s all i can imagine

they took out 15 trees for the new bike lane

doing this put sawdust into everyone’s eyes and lungs but

they say it’s better than the alternative

bank my eyes here and there

i am so held by every/one

utilitarian blue quilts buzzing on the wall,

warm blue sound proofing, overdrone,

i never expected anything back and suddenly–

now is a concrete mallet,

disrupting denial

that anything so beautiful can come with splitting seam,

geysers hot but predictably there is no safe distance

to everyone here,

it is a secret to everyone here that I don't know how to relax

is it better or worse to be seen this way?

every admission a moth, picking its way through cocoon wall

you are permitted to guess

what everyone on the other side is saying

pale green light coming in the window at 7:30

tell me prudently

what would happen if we were here forever

7:31, 7:32, 7:33,

it’s inappropriate to ask for more than this

all i can ask is that everyone’s feet keep swinging

and that fires and fevers continue to carry favorable connotations

Self credit,

i maker, i creator

shatter reality,

broken brown glass

bottle on sidewalk

like waking up from the cusp of a dream

hope as reality,

was reality, was two hands holding

time as in, always changing

new self even better than before

reality was the dream for a time

or

i thought i was lucid and

patience to have the good and bad i

embraced dichotomy i

left myself for dream which is hope which is reality

poem

alternating activity & acquiesce

worms that build shit in a bottle

corked with

moon wax presses

spring tide reseeds

tooth gap spit expands flow

like orthodontists told me it would

in the greenhouse

this room will never hold enough air for you all

lung~apology

sorry for making everyone listen to lightning bolt all morning

i will play us some Good adult contemporary now, with ambient field recordings and bird noises

help, I'm 2 cats

help, I'm 2 cats and our basement door is closed, down where we shit and piss

and we hear a snare drum and cymbal hit. and it makes us hit each other and run around real fast.

i can't see red, even when you show me

you left your rare, mint condition magic card on the floor of my car, no sleeve

how will you win now

music video

the "chocolates" telephone gazes dream-eyed with fondness toward the projector in the yard in front of the stage

blurry, goth impacts hit the ears of everyone around and we smile and look, and look down

is that st johns wart beneath the flamingo or some other plant with fake human name i won't pretend to know

Tip

A

Apprec

says the bucket from this angle

from this angel: a kick drum, 2 pedals, one home-made, & a Casio

from this devil: several mosquito bites to the ankle

& from the west, a soft breeze and a sunset that might indicate we've just passed the golden hour

bzzzzzt intensifies from the keyboard and a 5th cup of coffee makes itself known. polyrhythm. cool neo-goths. i can't describe it all as goth. but most things are a little. goth respect.

hearing-test-type beat

i like the way sounds remind me i can still hear

rorschach shoe print in dirt

wake up call, last call for white noise

and how about some video game noises? what was that donkey kong bongos game?

i was never ready to perform

that wet garbage smell is not ginko berries, it is wet garbage

and the bassist in the metal gear solid band is a poser

plastic lamp amplifies presence of stray plant at dusk-

dusk requests i quit using their name in my poetry

your welcome

I do push-ups everywhere I go

when I walk in the room

it secures the establishemtns to the ground

so they don't fly up or get loose

and when I'm outside I secure down the soil and grass

10 push-ups here and there, 20 if it's a sandy loam soil

the magnetic field grows weaker by the minute

but no need to thank me

this is my love for humanity calling me to do this

I need no paycheck

number poem

i think putting numbers in your poem makes it a better poem

2,309,457,225

6,832

54,980

numbers make poems headier,

i never really enjoyed math, always resisted it

this is me compensating

66,223

reinserting numbers back into my life

420 69

April

in intellectual dryspell

I'm high and I've decided to go on a walk

and stop editing and share more

on a not-so-rare occurrence of parallel thought

I started writing this one before you posted the article thing on homogeny but

this city is like this other city

this city is like nowhere I've ever been

he repeats the same joke about minimalism over and over while people clap and two-step along

I like how you hang out outside after sunset

I like how you like little stupid discordancies that aren't funny to anyone else

adult mopping their kitchen

beer smell from beer spill on the floor

the we-don't-even-drink cans all over the house

in the cold basement

remembering a set of arms and how they feel

I brought the one plastic arm that smells like you

to the next city to the next city

mudhouse poem

in springtime, soaring,

biking down a big hill, pedaling harder

fear of replicating the Fabio at six flags incident

striking

cats don't beeline

sometimes they take the long way around

"slinky" this is sometimes called

I try to switch up my route to work

I think because zizek said we should? i don't care, i don't remember why I just remember it's important

to not get stuck in the same pathways

dismount across the street

j-walking to work

keno ticket on someone's front step

habits to change are not always bad

not always obvious

a decaying sandwich leaves a slimy rut after rainfall

I pray the little mouse ignores it and cry a little

some things are too unnoticeable

wisconsin through the backseat window

staying in another 120something year old house tonight, the 3rd one in a row

time loves us & then passes us along

leaving mildew and earthsmell damp on our cold basement walls

things that remind you of your grandparents real house before they had to move out

I think that is a Frank Lloyd Wright house

I think that is a Frank Lloyd Wright rootbeer factory

breathing it in through the car ac, I start counting towers I see on hills, old churches and barns

rolling hills americana nap dream

fishlure mailbox like a singing wall fish billy bass but the music that comes out is bills and a postcard from mom

I should call her

is there more money up here or do they just have better style and bigger homes

on the sad goat farm with sad bison and sad deer

you can't hide mange. you can't hide fleas.

you can hide on the kids playset that looks like a rocket

slide spiral southward

back where i'm looking forward to being

thank you friends, I keep saying

thank you when there's nothing more-real to be said

i'm being real, honestly, thank you

pulled in

being the same in different directions as the

blue gel on the drum head &

blue gel cut-out of a bird stuck on the window

where the sunlight can pass through it

with the cognitive dissonance of a porch covered in wind chimes and a swinging bench for two,

that also has a ring doorbell that scolds "stop, you are being recorded"

I ask you

picture this with me

you're with me even more

i impatiently keep saying not enough

it always gets stuck or taken away in

the moment never feels right

or the wind is too strong, I'm waiting for

cadence to still

but i feel it too much

walking through a light rain til the park greens out

not me this time

long leafy

the trees actually lean in and reach down

making me feel heavy and small both

when given a dynamic shove,

I'm down

frog plodding noises in the puddles on the gravel path

silent and wiggly and

oh shit I ate the earthworms meant for the compost that doesn't

break down

I miscalculate what it takes to make a good compost

keep hoping the change of seasons will do the trick and keep counting on time to do the job for me

but time is short,

only 4 letters long

how is it i keep asking that

much of it

On Confidence, or Trying Too Hard

a foamy noise slips in and out of the picture

and holds us,

the accordion postures,

pauline knows how to take her time

pen slides paper, scarf on windowsil,

just like the scarf a stranger brushed by me, my hand touched and noticed it's softness, cyan,

and now suddenly we're all trying to wear blue today,

even the large blue illuminated sky

no blue without the sun

I think willie nelson noticed that first

a table sits outside, waiting for a dog to come get tied up to it while some people with whom the dog sits enjoy some takeout

"does the table know how well it multitasks?"

challenges the dog to the thin-legged iron patio table

"does it know who it's up against?" the dog pulls after a bird or something

the table says nothing

Supine, Babe

some mountains are deemed "better" simply because they are taller

I spent some time living in satellite dishes and flower petals without realizing I was even smaller

am I speaking my mind enough

how much comes out loud

stuck in the rough,

tongue in my mouth

goosebumps shiver thought of letting loosened

did I say out loud yet

how much I think it, how often?

as the grass grows longer

as the mountain taller

pines dry and hearts are pulled wide

wood cracks from parched air

and something antediluvian tells us we like the sound

here's a list

of things that can take your breath away,

not in a good way

it's not the ocean

it's not the lake at night under a meteor shower

could be like

a breath of air freshener

a stubbed toe

a snake sheds her skin in the treetops the way a cloud loses snow

breath of fresh air freshener

breath of fresh air freshener

why spend your life trying to be perfect

one day long ago, someone lived in that dilapidated house in the field

and now

the old fence covered in bramble hasn't meant anything since 1973

two poems

give me a sec to remember a good joke

carefree age of innocence

heading homeward

all these new ways

all four feet off the ground,

a fruitless search for a vanishing art –the "hidden years" unchronicled

"if you had binoculars," the waiter told me, "you could see crystal-clear sky,"

bringing home to us

unremitting beauty

the most authentic echo