An Hour On Foot

An hour on foot

to restore magic within the head.

The twilight feel of a storm’s leading edge.

The sun swiftly occluded,

wind stirring the trees into strange ritual dance.

And the feet keep time,

freeing the ego to fade for an interlude,

freeing the heart to play with sense unfiltered.

The wind whirling is music without instrument,

a rising and falling song for the earless.

And the well opens in your belly,

a pulsing liquid tension threatening

to reflect the cascading nowness

of everything and everyone around.

Threatening to make we strangers in the street

flash fully telepathic and naked to each other’s

whispers and intents.

The invisible pushing air binds all,

rippling the skirts of passing girls,

hands clutched in firm prevention.

Litter in flight both given and discarded,

from trees and villain alike,

runs in choreographed streams and eddies,

pecking at faces bravely peering into this change

that takes us all.

This changing life,

this marked day,

this blackness without night.

Distance Dementia

distance dementia dogtown arbor wishing lovers lying fallow fun time showering else always flowering if to the coons drawn snarls till the blue churls churn in clouds of misting fire temperance flies too long and too low for the casual death of dark dreams and silly themes friends to no king but the fallen man in the government hospital bed forgotten and left alone with his neglected newspaper route lie left in strangers’ eyes lies made and left behind on the bus strange ways of passing time of ticking down the silent seconds where we should have been screaming and beaming our uniqueness to billboards on mars and pluto and to strange shapes glimpsed on titan where the sleepers wait to lives full of delicate gross expression to speed and insult to the animal who urinates on your trees in the middle of the night to the dark ships seen in the brief lighthouse eye adrift and drifting in toward this rocky shore what comes for us what comes for just them what will be my sole pain to be unshared unsaid befallen forgotten destroyed remember reborn and thrust back down again I see the electron glow in the people’s eyes their claw like hands clutching the ilife, the good life of berserk infamy the disassembly of the powers of being human the bright knowledge retained the language thick and meaningful dropped down the level of closed captioned cats without pause without punctuation without intention or apology for foresight or hindsight or dreams thought of with originality but only dropped down to reboots and lack luster scandals of vamps and charlatans bring me the alien invasion the evil great foe the world war of clean black and white and easy animosity bring me the survival story of our forefathers and our grandchildren anything but this post post post modern banality of this endless wait at the Godot bus stop give me the old testament destruction and judgment give me the trouble and the sacrifice the heroic choices and the life of legend make me brave and inconsolable make me the invisible desperate man who cannot abide the lies and masks of this diluted civilization give me rockets up ship go give us a frontier a different tier something beside the reality tiara of shinning stupid celebrities and endless internet villains drop kick me jesus into a world devoid of spell check a world measured once again in honor and truth and mug me for these silly nostalgias I never had make me able to wait for the present to arrive and to close my eyes to the future canceled by the past make this my final hour before I ask for another alm make me human make me human give me trees and let me kill and create and burn my masterpieces before they’re made I will I will fill this bucket with my own brains if it means plugging in a circsaw and then fingers of dream and rivulets of meat as ever there was

A Stillness After Masterful Music

A stillness after masterful music.

The orchestra as one lays their instruments down.

The crowd swoons in a hush, each heart paused to reflect,

This death is dear.

What he left us is beyond measure,

beyond the course of suns bouncing from solar system to galaxy,

as an electron’s jump belies a changing state,

further than the terrible fears of the October People come again

further than the strange electric smell of lions on the veldt.

We honor your Murderer, and your Firemen.

We’ve learned to respect butterflies, especially those very old.

There are Rocket men out there, trailing comets just as lonely.

And we promise to name the first high school on Mars after you.

Some will know your name and weep.

Some will hear it for the first and maybe read some of your paragraphical genius.

Their hearts are the lucky ones, for they discover a new joy,

and need not mourn your passing away.

Regards regards regards,

Good night, Mr. Bradbury, Ray.

Acetylene torch, a settling touch

Acetylene torch, a settling touch

transformations gross and subtle

soldiering signs, grass before the scythe,

three horn blasts and the Others come,

to this, to the clock, hands undone.

Darling drinkers, lift them high,

forswear thoughts of what draws nigh.

Ere self is erasure of I,

what hands do pray, what eyes upon the sun

pick out rays, the signs are plain,

seen by Sara Tall and Emily D.

Singers call across the empty sea,

of past lives, out past Mars,

a little further than eternity.

What liquid makes this sip true,

what hour does smile, rare and few.

Liken to rocks, lichen on the north,

while we cast and reel, press and seal.

Notes far flung, and confessions tucked away,

bottles without stoppers merely fill

and fail to contain.

Lick this black spittle from my pen.

I’ve ended, and so begin.

React, And Choose Anew

I’ll be damned if chaos doesn’t seem to reign.

Occasionally, life reminds us the basis of violence,

pure disruption of the plan, the style, the formula.

The best laid gardens of mice and men...

I’ll be damned if it ain’t a season of murder,

whether it be my fruited plants aborted via pale design,

or a careless robin in the morning road 

thumping his last thought against the undercarriage,

or a whole town in Syria swamped in fear and blood and semi auto reports.

People are breaking the seals of angels.

What to do.

Push forward and reference history’s perspective.

Know where and when you are

and rely upon the whispers of the dead,

for they speak only of why.

And we can but reply.

Statements in science and soldiery succor,

given doubts and dreams, we slumber

only to flash into the waking action.

Prostrate then Plan. Darn and Sew.

The layers of Life fractal away into the distance,

in patterns understood and beguiling.

What can we do but react,

and choose anew.

Seeing The Singing

Seeing the singing

Singly something slides
Some tumbler clicking inside
Fingers twitching, feeling the picking

Designs surface for air
Old vomit burst forth from the blowhole
Figures and diagrams fade from
Old red to new blue

Syringes tapped and flicked
Sprig, squirt, the fingers cradle
as the thumb braces in the plunger’s ring

Let there ever be moments astride
before and after
the demarcation of dream and realization
“we used to speak of it, and now rely on it”

Adjustable adjusting,
such grace.

There won’t be fine flowers in her hair
But her dark eyes will be mine
To be carried in my pocket
Like a gory locket
So that I may stare and stare
evermore in the infinite beautiful black of the
raven’s wing

My sweet Poeish girl.