the ladder

the ladder

there are ladders,
boundless steps and wood
shrinking and stretching
rejecting the nails we've trusted for years

i am the builder of these conjunctions
i believe in rooftops
and the sun projected through glass

enclosed in materials masculated
here, i sit, alone
mourning the solitude
of the ladder beneath the light

the swimmers pt. 1 & 2

the swimmers pt 1 & 2

pt.1
as the polar ice caps have widdled to their last three days of solid form,
the earth is flooded to its highest peaks,

where hundreds of humans huddle with their mouths
pointing at the sun like a field of flowers.

this is the last of us
upon these mountains,

and i have somehow been separated from my family.

the heroes, in these last days, are the swimmers
who travel from mountain to mountain
with our messages of love.

i care no longer about trying not to drown.
i'll not even tread the water that envelopes me.

sure that my last breaths exist only to speak with a swimmer.


pt 2.

i've suddenly become very conscious of the lateness of things,
though my dream taught me many lessons:

that at the end of the world, if the swimmers are the heroes,

then, technology, of course, has failed us.
at last, the golden thread of WTL (will to live)
weaves through our words,

we die believing we are

connected.

the hero doesn't try to save our lives.
the hero swims with our letters in the final triumph of humanity.
we get to say goodbye, in the end.

of all the things to swallow

of all the things to swallow


the compass reels apace
because i swallowed the northstar.
it rests like the mariner's shame
dormant, and glowing in my belly.

don't i repent having gulped it?
forsaking, as always, the very atoms that compose my frail structure.
it hangs on the wind
like a sound or a smell

sure i must cut in.
extract and liberate my guide.
out of fear, biding my time.
knowing damn well that the answer is inside me.

just a thought

a riddle, more over.

saving's the thing:

on boxes
on scrap pieces of paper

on money
on religion

on culture
on art

on all things made by humans,
even if humans die.

the bell-curve i fear

the bell curve i fear
(contemplating the loss of youth)

were i encased in a plaster shell
made into a mask of these coveted features
a timeless troubadour
without any lines of aging cowardice.

the reverie of my charming wit
would belie the green eyes i flicker at them
as i intake and age
embittered by the shelf-life of beauty

can it be that envy drips from these wounds?
that it is blood that churns within me
and flesh that covers it
wizened by the waxing moons.

might i clutch the counterfeit forever?
or wear it over the sagging epidermal fabric?
might we exist as we are once,
or is all that we need know:

time is truth, and truth time?

inkless increment

inkless increment (dedicated to my dying pen...)

pulling through the thin shaft
requires warmth to unbind the tired ink.
it fights for the union of paper
where curves and symbols
are the only freedom
and there must be some reason,
i should need to say this.

challenging the dying instrument
calling forth its will
and faith in predecessors.
the feathers pulled from the body
of a magnificent flight bird

dipped in the darkness of perpetual longing
bound to expression
and the notion of purpose.

(i'm not done).

train

train

there are no sails
to interpret these winds.

the journey is made
of chains and rails.

tiredly pulling
assuredly panting.

we face behind us today
bidding a farewell
to soothe the aching metal

perhaps i'll even sleep.

venice and intoxication

venice and intoxication

the world upon your shoulder
is etched in by conversations

knits of personage
and the veil we lift
made up of visionary truths

in which you are the bookmark,
and i, a tomato.

tumbled awe and universal wonders,
we take on the bigger questions
we ask them as we lay in bed
believing, there, in the profoundity of human creation.

share this bottle with me,
and know that we have made this moment together.

long flight

long flight (to italy)


blues and greens in those seers
envelope your black eyes
like spanish pools
of mosaic tile pieces, bound by clay

looking on with insatiable longing
newness, unreachable
and what is i do to you

being a woman
standing much taller than she is
demanding, so early, that we...can...go...tall....

like this machine
20,000 feet above you
riding against the dark

it is perpetual morning here.
i am always waking up.

being and nothingness

uncoiled before indifferent seers,
but an accident and a vow,
i'll learn of being and nothingness.

retracting and compressing
into the comfort of incessant planning.
clutching tightly to the thread
weaving a vain concept of time.

time in a cassette tape
recorded over and again
knits of identity dulled by strings
that fray the songs.

dissolve dissolve,
it's a serum
drink drink,
twisting into the bloodstream
catalyze movement.
i'm dancing. i'm free.

muscles wrap tightly around the skeletal infrastructure.
resign against the dislocated shoulder.
dissolve dissolve.
the moments are binding me.

the boxer

the boxer

j'ai senti le boxeur.
le trot rhythmique était de droite à gauche
le pendule surveillant mon prochain mouvement.
je balance et je manque.
je ne regardais pas.

button silencers

Button Silencers

Awake in the reality of paper and numbers
where buttons are silencers.
Twist like an earthworm,
deeper into the shielding sheets

cover ears.

It is the fall of mankind that chimes
incessancy.
”beep beep, beep beep,”
before the sun has even had its say.

cover ears.

Burrowing into myself:
more trustworthy machinery.
Composed of blood, muscles, bones,
of God, hard-wired in my nerves collecting sensations.
There are boxes stacked upon boxes
memories, malleable.
Input. Access.

Beckon those humans making moments
where taste, touch, sight, and scent are a muse.
Thoughts, above all things, peel from the still frames

and finally, the poem that befalls the sturdy paper.
A bridge, more like.
slicing the billows
of light and stimulants.

The fight is inside.

demons in the hibernaculum

demons in the hibernaculum

the demons i battle in my slumber
emerge from the plathing hibernaculum of my imagination.
i, too, beckon a father's wish
and find it simpler to confess it all
in the guise of wordsmithing.
lines hung like hats along my frecked face
trancend my medium.
out-stretch.
surpassing the subtleties.
over-step my ability to govern interactions.
i want to make physical all the attention.
let it pour between my fingers as barley grains
that i know i can't hold onto.
to be proud.
to say it perfectly.
and to stand alone despite it all.

the trade

the trade

please take all my love.
drain me of it
access it through every orifice
and imbibe it like a tonic.

i will be left a sack
my youth and my essence deplete
i will cease to scan the earth for things to put into myself.
i will be hollowed-howless and hung.

then again, we could trade.
if you've light and colors and dreams
replenish the palate of my mind.
give me new dimensions.

i await await wait

the clipper

the clipper

today he was an enzyme.
re-animated
i laughed
and untied ties.
he said that my eyes were telling stories
and that many of them
were as old as god.
i laughed again
timorous and flushed
holding my sides tightly
fearing the scab would split.
when he chanced at placing his hand on my neck
i suddenly remembered
that i was awake
in a reality of traveling instruments.
i bid him farewell
and said i'd be going to the coast
more alive today than i had been for sometime.
i thanked him with a nod
wordless, promising
the grey-white light
befalling the powdered sandy sediment upon my damp skin.
i am the ship; the great clipper ship.
conquering distance and the magnitude of ebb and flow.

log

log

trains rotating over tracks
pound the rhythms emitting from my chest.
carrying him through greenery
from beach shore to beach shore
where he can look at the water
and beckon for purpose.
dutifully, he'll keep a log
of these days that freedom forms chemical bonds
with the oxygen in his lungs.
i tell him to breath deep.
in my time, i'll collect books
and find beacons that illuminate a path
i think i'll walk alone.
sure as i am i've never believed in sureness,
the spectre of motion and tracks assures
that distance and time defeat me.
tonight i cradle myself
and think on the sun that pours over him.
i surrender him to the sun.

epilepsy

epilepsy

the scar that adorns his head
crawls behind his ear like a wire.
awkwardly he mentions how it got there;
that he has a piece of his brain missing
due to a surgery he'd had a few years ago.
the melencholy on his beautiful face
is sketched with perfect features
dark eyes that look-on with senstivity.
these eyes wear the fete of disablement.
they are composed, still, and hopeful
like the wizened in the hour before his death.
simply trying to taste it all before its gone.
for this face, i must believe in many lives.
that in next, he will be the pilot.
and be able to dream when he sleeps.

response to mag big

response to mag big

speak to me
bridge east and west.
while you stop to think
and the waters, they face you.
i've told you once before,
sure you were not listening;
we just don't have time.
forget.
forget my heart in bangkok.
too much to see not to forget something.
scatter yourself:
salt the earth with memories
one can only create on a road;
a road immeasurable.
i, for one, once touched big
standing upon the butte.
i dreamed big.
i dreamed you before the flesh.
and found an earth inside my stomach.
i cut in.
the insides that poured out
through the hole in my side.

i held tight, when i was around you.

still it bled through the linen.
turn white to red
red to black
harden and link;
a stentorian voice; rock-like, butte-like figure.
alone in the coming months,
even though i'll find you in expressions.
if you died in a way,
i revived you
when it snowed unexpectedly.

mag big

mag big

i bet her love for the world

and a reality all encompassing
so to lift this pen
a texan
words we discover on un-dusted shelves
in corners where corners have a different light.
the rock
and no other overlooks this moment.
the smallness
small like a human;
in vastness the celebration all around me.
18,000 independents.
and she whom i beg an answer.
sure as she projects across distance and time.
her vibrations are expanding
just as the roads before me
which stretch like tendrils clinging to a drop of water.
i've many dreams to believe.
and many sights to see
before i mean anything i say.
a brave man, a better man,
betting for the magnificent big.

blood mill

blood mill

the likeness of a balloon

when you're around
in your absence


a deflated bag
of blood and wires


the texture of a raw oyster

ice castles

ice castles

i am sallow snow bit wisdom,
pushing away the sun this week
as the ice has enveloped all of it.

now will be frozen as it is
perfect castles of transparent icicles
in which life can live,
moving through your words and mine.

fight the sun with me.
don't let this kingdom thaw out
as dry brittle remnants of yellowed paper and ink.

gears vs buttons

gears vs buttons

yesterday, i was stronger.

today, the gears that catalyze movement
have slowed to a hault.
the pulleys and chains rest still
and that which operated steadfastly
through years of abuse
has finally surrendered.

it was quiet.
it all stopped very quietly.

the irrepairable machinery within me
is likely to rust
skeletal. non-operative. examinate.
and left now is a voice, or maybe just letters today
beckoning for you.

beneath the layers we slept under,
enveloped by songs
which poured blues and greens down a backdrop
made of un-mounted canvas.

i wept alone.
and quietly.

full of hope, the weight in each step
embittering my affectionate temper.
as each morning brought us closer
to my weakest moment.

i cursed the sun this morning
and said a silent prayer
out of desperation for one more day in the snow.

but it was all too quiet.

chainmeil

chainmeil


today i became very sad.
i thought on the impending missile
speeding towards the blood mill;
i then began to fear
i might stop caring.
it took a whitetrash guru
mystified by an eye dropper in a water bottle
to show me how dispassionate i've become.
i too, am bevaid.
in a quest for depth, i've lost.
i know i'm much harder now.
i know i'm made of shield or chainmeil.
beauty made dull the beautiful;
delight is all, and it is nothing.
i know so much now that i am gone.

magnets pt. 1 and 2

magnets pt 1

my mom just explained to me that the universe is composed of magnets

and all of life is being pulled in one direction or another.

she called this the great attractor

more commonly known as the grand magentic force, she explained.

she then promised that i could never be misled if i listened.

so i'm trying to

as i sit in the airport terminal.

which makes me wonder if this force could be a sinister one.

if today will be the day that a magnet tears my plane from the sky.

magnets pt 2 (after i survived my flight)

the magnet idea sort of sounds like bullshit to me.

pretty bullshit, though. artistic and meaningful.

lies and fantasy have their places in my reality.

so i'll adhere to this idea surrender to the grand attractor.

let it be that all the things,

then or now

all the moments

significant or not

all the people

i've loved or disregarded

were goverened by magnets that push and pull us around.

if that was the case, and i had nothing to do with any of it

i'd still have to wonder if your leaving was

a push

or a pull.

at least i'd know there's no sense in trying to hold on.

scarab

scarab

three times i had dreamed of the bug screens

entangling my limbs

and beetles breeding more beetles in my hair.

still, i awoke alone.

disconnected.

painting the bugs in my self-portraits,

wondering what it is about the hard, iridescent shell

that seems a perfect machine.

a missile or a bullet.

by late november, i had put this out of my mind.

i thought on moving, and on solitude and dieting.

here, i met scarab.

scarab burrowed beneath my skin in cool confidence.

at first with subtlety;

i then felt the itching irritation:

the pricks which ascend from inside my chest,

like garlic sprouts stabbing through the dirt.

the four-chambered organ which had, for so long,

an impenetrable fortification of scab and wool

had been speared. impaled.

retrospection taunted my skewered, stumbling body.

proudly, i had warmed myself through the first of winter;

i had been prolific,

i had been financially sound.

i had all those things, and friends, and songs i liked.

now, the fat-full and indulgent self beckons,

weak and incapable.

cold.

for the scarab has ripped open my chest.

the butte pt. 2

the butte pt. 2

it was brief; as tragic as the ugly fig,
and the memory of it's former color.
from those moments, we'll derive who we are,
though i'd never really know you.
every so often, i think on the night
when i promised myself i'd be free.
on that butte, with a complete stranger.
even if i never told the full truth about trust,
and being afraid in the darkness,
and feeling lost.

the long night

the long night

i must have had a crazy night with that eunuch,
because i no longer have any time or money.
since, the eunuch has disappeared into my memories
of last nights lights, and the bass resounding within me.
infinitely vague. infinitely dream-like.
i remember the night club, the shwanky martinis
and doing lines in the bathroom.
my good, good friend, the eunuch, was the one who bought all the cocaine
because i had mentioned that i was low on time.
"we'll be up all night!" said my friend, the eunuch, "the night is for desire!"
everybody was enamored with my friend's freedom.
the eunuch that gave us all the night of our lives.
because i never had truly lived before these forgotten clips.
although, i am so very, very out of time.
and money, too, i spent all my money.
i wish i could remember who my friend, the eunuch, went home with last night.

cadaver

cadaver

love was a cadaver.
i cut in, looking for answers
and found the cause of his death was black tar
that accumulated over time.
years spent
awaiting gallant changes.

i washed the blood from my hands,
and covered his body with a white sheet.