laconic lacustrine sepulcher

laconic lacustrine sepulcher

poems by leum

A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.

- Ecclesiastes 7:1

All men have the one entrance into life and the one exit.

- Wisdom of Solomon 7:6

Death will find you even if ye hide in fortresses built up strong and high.

- Quran 4:78

Foreward These poems were mostly written in the Summer of 2013 till the Winter of 2016, with some exceptions/outliers. While they do not represent my work as of now, they hint at an underlying principle of practice. Since that Summer, my poetry count nears the first thousand. Although these are not my best, they are my individualistic take on poetry ever since I began this endeavor of poetism. Most of these poems were written with one muse in mind, whom I will name only with the initials, AMS. Yet, in my trek of poeting, I met a Master Poet, a man that defies the normal rules of poetry and dares to continue further into redefinition. This Poet amongst poets, whom this book is dedicated to, has taught me many things, still teaching me to this day. And though these poems were written in light of an intense devastating breakup, his shadowing allowed me to grow further beyond what I presumed capable. So, without further ado, I present to you my first collection of poems, including three chapbooks, laconic, lacustrine and sepulcher. I hope you enjoy them, and Chris, I hope you recognize them. They were always written to hopefully impress you (and somehow win her back). Note: Some have been edited with DADA and Erasure methods; the rest are as they were years ago.

Welcome to the Laconic Lacustrine Sepulcher.

for Christian Alexander Perez

laconic

laconic ive funny shit tomorrow charcoal says pretty please the moon for give shit grass without a single drink metamorphoses im a poet? histrionics ? jolly are the townfolk honey, because, it when the clock strikes nine ink students take five yesterday hungry for honey marvelous marbles just now jazz I don’t night culture cuantas soles what do the birds say id debate/middle i want spread thin like a veil awake laconic as if nature mother torture there is have you seen the moon. we clash no war the trees oppose the bees is that grave ours. the king were poignant dog sees god who then invented satin. no one missing? when to cut the head off a python in partibus infidelium the same day, the same second, some babel

ive like a hive taking the bus to market street fuss to watch all the buzz jive

funny between a cat & a dog i am union i am both the fucker & the fucked

shit i dont like it but i gotta eat

tomorrow there is going to be a time & a day & a month & a year & a week & a second where the only day month year second you think about the whole week is the time you spent the whole evening worrying about time

charcoal says i dont give a damn about the weather anymore id rather hear you sing than have thunder muffle your voice you voice your opinion i dont give a damn about your opinion if you want my advice stick to it not even god can save you from your self if you want to know the truth some truth youre better off running to the desert where youll find at least at the bare minimum some advice that for cakes sake beats mine

pretty pretty soon you will have nothing to send to me except flowers someday when looking at the shades of green in an orange sky you will see me and then cry dry tears after picking up my guitar with a dusty mouth will you realize you cannot play me anymore you will get on all fours and beg me back you will wish my eyes never crossed yours

please please do not forget so lightly how the candle on the bed makes a mess last week you forgot our anniversary this week you will forget my eyes

the moon how do you do? sitting up there with your moon shine as if the sunlight was hitting on you

for give have a slice of bread. here, have the whole loaf. you see my point? we used to be such great friends. remember thanksgiving? you think giving is a spectacle? the difficulty with you is simple. you never know what to eat. somedays the turkey, other days me.

shit i write like shit i breathe in shit i inhale

shit shit

because & if is

all

well then

grass grass does not grow where steps man. over where they can, hair of giants spring from their backs and collide with the concrete axe developed on paper to eventually stone. they pick at the bone continually, gnarling at what they can. so too does man.

without a single drink below the light, my eyes are vacant as shadows are under a streetlamp. my death is clear and my skull is visible. without a single drink, my liver sets sail for the evening rather than the night. without a smoke, my lungs are alright. below the light, the streets are filled. the town walks up and down the hilled. cats and dogs are where they ought to be, and the baker talks to the mailman freely. dust is seen, and laughter is heard from the stream. below the light, all are bound to beam.

metamorphoses being apollo at day & demeter at night being loved one day & gone the next being a horse for the day & a cat at night being held one day & dropped the next what does it take for a crow to tweet & sing like the others? when will the penguin fly? when the rooster is not proud? or when the chicken crosses the road to tell us why it did so? where do nymphs become manatees?

im as sheep as any as swine as many as hoarse as a horse as cow as a cow

a poet? no, a cat.

histrionics why no pop no pulp no pope no mop no soap

? am i insane to think the world is full of fools ? is it questionable ? questioning existence to its fullest extent? ? i pick at the scab for what? pleasure & i pick at my dad as he did me cause the comp tells me to and the drugs help too but who am i to complain about pressure cause thats why i do it right? the pain for pleasure till death do them part

jolly are the townfolk sad is the mailman

honey, because, to find the right words to describe honey is like all the seconds of the world trapped inside of a bubble being bounced over & over on the freeway during rush hour traffic on a monday morning

it an animal an anagram an anecdote an intelligent thing analytical a cycle a cook of chaos of sorts clucking a clown if i ever seen it if ever i knew one

when the clock strikes nine shall we then walk up to the midnight of the hour asking for the written permission to stand near the minute hand as the seconds drift our hair

ink d

i

m

i

n

i

s

h

e

s

students do not learn language to fill in language with more language quiet best be off learning something else

take five amidst this silence this ancient of all ancients this aching wanting

waning

love

my ears are

parched

yesterday i bubbled the sea & garbled the shore i fled to the west & ended up north i sent for the rain & called on the birds one by one till i was then outnumbered & what did i find in my everlasting voyage? well i havent found it yet but the trek does seem steep & dangerously delicious if only the rain came then the desert might not be dry today is a newer day than tomorrow the world might never wake up it is yesterday the trees speak in a language we have forgotten

hungry for honey not a whimper nor a sound not even a frown neither joy nor youth not even truth or the well near the town or the lake near the city or the city near the ocean or the fire on top of water no drought could compare no hunger was more absolute nor fair than the hunger for sap and air

marvelous marbles what makes sense in heaven the ricochet of nightmares and dreams of myrrh in mirth as in stone or marble wand or marvel sightseer or seer of sights passenger or attendant captain or capped train do you ride the train or ride with it marvelous marbles in the fist of aether what makes sense in hell a bag of bones and a sense of humor

just now Worst of all, the cabinet pickings. To think they own Plantation Parkway. Running it each night. As if they planned it months ago. As if the trees of their zoos were planted ages ago, the roots going down to Egypt. Where were you when you were picked on? Your friends at another party?

To think they own the world, yet Christ is arisen and crowned king. To think they owned Manhattan. The people have it.

Their worst fear? Revolution. Chaos out of order. God being real.

If one were to take the next step themselves, the ladder would collapse.

We must all take the next step together in this dancehall we danced in just now.

jazz i speak of jazz inherited from the froth and thankful of blue grass down and shackled to earth down to earth high on grass gray brown with a tint or a hue of white or black for occasion in every jack and jazz cigarette we always disagreed with and with which and with which which if we wanna get to the nitty gritty of sweat vs blues jazz of sax soma and trumpets & bass ripping through the memorandum of of & of which—which is tempo if they left silent & clean of wanna be wanna see jazz that has guitar and drum solo with without the drums about the drums of one & how they do well solo without a you about the new till the drum is hit the last note and we all choke on the first beat

I DON'T want to look at your face any more. The way you used to curl your hair before a grand outing, before the New Year.

I don’t want to look at your face any more, those blue eyes all I can see any day of the week. I used to call you my baby boo lovely bear, but now I don’t know what else to call any thing ‘cause all I can see now is the look on your face telling me you can't love me any more.

night culture for French Town night time clatter banter chatter over who gets what batter of bugs hustlin hissin & whistlin in wing flaps & wine clacking saying -amen to all our troubles let us eat & drink our desires just this once from their hearts instead of ours -give us this bread without slaps to the head show us the light without a torch at the end & night critters roar & roar hooray hazah hallelujah

cuantas soles cuantas veces he visto tu última cara y de la penúltima, dime algo porqué tenías esa sonrisa si vas abajo del lago tan temprano cuéntame, cuando regreses

what do the birds say when one walks away —they say remember my mother & member how fancy the weather walking on yonder— wonder what it is to hold a star and let it go so far to skip the bar to take the car till the dash shows empty till the morning hen signals again the fluffy clouds floating on by the coming along passing then

id let me take a toothpick and shove it up my nose for the betterment of our kind. must head to hell first; then my footsteps might lead me to heaven. wonder which poet will help along our travels. wonder which one will go insane along the way, me or hey, there along the creek, you stand by the bay. to me, to say what is right from wrong, there are no obligations or objections in this open door, no book to read on the matter. you ask me what my opinion is on the dog and the other goat: what does my hand say when held up with our fingers? let me take you to where limbo is a major city and the ends are beginnings. what is thinning? is it disturbing? mesmerizing? is the ego as black and putrid as they all say? a mass of goblets expanding and imploding? horrid, you say? how rowdy are the schools in the deep sea? how lonely will the lonely be? how can anyone live without the id. id better ive better before

debate/middle slept with my thoughts last night poem & riddle bone & fiddle foam & diddle and when awakening from all the sex & sweat we did have sex & sweat someone else got up to make tea & meddle

i want every single note every single speck not a dime or a nickel left ya hear me? i want this place thrashed and burned to the ground ya hear me? not a penny left

spread thin like a veil why do the poor grow old thin like a veil of glass slithered slate solely enslaved slowly like the trees and their spake as the wind responds thin like a veil of roots for ever held down

awake to reawaken from the depths how god awful it was how god awful was it to lie near the fire and be cold still it has been deathly cold since to emerge day in & day out it has been a day since hasn’t it? to walk the streets you walked and talk just like you talked as a dragon one cannot say what has already been said to be reawoken as some sort of eternal serpent & even then one still questions what it is to be awake that is fully awake

laconic to day the morrow to find good sorrow to find flowers on a dark canvas to see an angel on each corner of the page to see my head splattered on a wall to resurrect the last second

as if as if the world was filled with humans as if we were all poets as if the world was yellow as if the sky was blue as if the grass was green as if the sea was dark as if the sun was near as if looking up was looking down at fear

nature mother nature exiles us, yet we nurture the very nature we exile. cars will not thread on grass. they were meant to be on the pavement designated for them to be on. do ye not see the clouds above ye? or the roots of the tree above where they used to be? my mother once told me do not jump into the lake naked. who knows what wants ye. tell me a joke before who else needs to

supper. suffer?

torture there is torture there is in finding a song & then lending it to the devil. torture there is in keeping a soul. imagine all the whining. torture there is in loving you.

have you seen the moon. have you seen the moon? light? blue her with all have you seen how every blue sidewalk is & is blue the grass & your house are blue house & even my to talk to the moon kidding am i but who my look out window the blue still it shining glowing like the sun found it have you sun high moon how the reminds me of autumn & the orange.

we there is dirt on my face do we come from dirt? black bird red bird blue bird green & the white dove, has it been seen? anywhere, anyway, do you see what we mean? we as in we the people as in we who like to hold hands while we pee into the cups we drink we as in we who break formation to form breaks in groups to make men hate men to shake the clover for a drop of water who knows best except the dead at least they know how to rest we in new york city miami chicago tallahassee gotta stay busy for the sake of money we the popes love our money hookers need it as badly as hungry mothers while fathers kill to protect our borders who else needs a loaf of summer you do we do they do not

clash a poem by lu-who the fuck caresdo you? abandon all hope ye who enter & welcome to hell was what james wright said to franz and boy was he right. driving past the convenience store before a man & another man get into a fight. left my bags at the airport. the taximan was nowhere near for the night. o what a blight. to write for hours and come up with only one line. does my approach bode ill? is there a virus in me? some bad bacterial omen we should all be worried about? what? do my teeth rot by the minute? does the color of my skin hurt you? or do you feel frightened by my eyes? are they not blue enough? do my lips not chat enough? or do they open much? in accordance, much obliged for abundance. too much is never enough. give me the taser gun & shut up.

no war there is no surrender in war as there are no prisoners surely no medic only a headache be comfort with the heartache of death to hold you further into damnation what is liberty but a hat you can get to put on so often what are guns but toys what is a shadow but a river sopped with dirt sand & soil what is oil but blood produced & manufactured underneath encased by smithereens nights writing poems until the feeling went away is there a debt to the sky we must pay with many dead to date your people against your people mine against mine does fire not burn both sides of a coin & once one side is burnt is not the worth worth the worth

the trees oppose the bees does the butterfly hunt for the moth springing from flower to flower in hopes its enemy lies behind a petal does the moth hide from the butterfly flying endlessly into the light at night to flee from the sun at day can the tree tell what is passive from the active can the bee say what is potential from kinetic have the seasons changed? are we in another version of the world? have our roles switched? do we see each other eyes to lips or is there still a mix when we speak? my voice yours? enemies as friends? might we consider the likelihood of something else being the enemy?

is that grave ours. i am going to die before i can get you to love me again, arent i? a stream of rain splashes against my face and the toes of my feet; let alone ours. can my hands touch your soul? will that be alright or not so? can my eyes be bit by your teeth? do you know what lies underneath? is that grave ours? if we cannot dance because you cannot dance, can we at least, at our dreamscape, escape? are you someone else over there as am i, before awakening and becoming me & thee? do we live in the dreams of our dreams? or the dreams of another? shake me before you sleep but this time, read me a melody? my remedy?

the king i once was a beggar full from the snow into spring and summer fall do i go the air so powerful full from the snow i once was terrible fall do i go into spring and summer may you walk with me like so with vigor will you dance with me i once was powerful like so with vigor the air so terrible i once was a beggar

were was it me who stole helen of troy? was it my face who rode the aeneid? my hands wrote it? is my mother his? had to hang her up from a telephone wire to stop all the crying and bleeding. went to eat tangerines after. got a note from the doctor to eat healthier. went to the rocky road ice cream parlor to eat the place up. had pizza afterward. climbed the Coast Redwood to see the damage. set the Coast Douglas-fir on fire. went to the top of the Eucalyptus regnans to see the smoke reach the other gods of night. at day, do the birds speak gay? at night do couples kiss each other as if the other was god. are we all god? if then, who is satan? the light, where does it come from? we all know it is the sun that gleams on us all but what of the moon? why does she cry too? accept our errors and grasp hands? to raise our glasses for the return of helen? the full moon shies away behind the grayest shade. were we not amazed by this drifting scene? shall we not howl into the eve of night? fortissimo until our towers collapse and our inner voice begins diminuendo? how do we achieve the infamous crescendo? day by day, the dead jump off a cliff. will you take my hand, helen of troy, as our families merge in war? where shall we run off to to build the next city of rome? fair maiden, if thy heart is as soft as thine eye, lock me up in the cells below and do not return for me till morning. my hounds and my beasts seek for flesh. o how my chest pangs for a night like so! yet let me not reach you. swear it. my nails will only scratch the bed and leave a breathless mess behind. besides, the heart is hard to button let alone replace. where will you store my heart tonight? beside a portrait? inside a cabinet? by the fireplace?

poignant from shadow to light to shadow from dinosaurs to soldiers from iron to oil with dust and rust to look at the sky is free to live on land costs money with a view that grand why the sun coming down?

dog sees god Upon walking the dog around the corner, The dog turned around to me. He said, How do you get to hold the leash, master?

I blushed, and replied, Why, I have a bed, You have the floor and grass. He looked confused.

I picked him up and asked, What's wrong?

He looked to me and said, Aren't you amused By me not having a bed? Or my morning song To the neighboring ducks? What about my Protection against the other dogs? I do this All for you. A tear ran from my eye.

I bent down and gave him a kiss.

On the walk back around the corner, Every little thing looked awfully familiar.

who then invented satin. how much must we suffer before we are given our proper due? how much must you rise before we rise, too? how many lies before we know what is true?

“Who invented Aids”—o so yre in on it too? who else knew? and if so many know, why do they still own the door? how many tax cuts and how many cuts on families in debt? what do we do? america, if you love lucifer so much, why not build it a mall? you already have two? so this is what you do? lie around all day while yr friends next door howl for help? screw them fascists! take aim and fire on command, me lads, this ship will not return to shore so long as me hands on it.

no one missing? what makes up a splendid day? no one missing; no one lost, no one. all here. what makes up a splendid day to me? nights with you, the moon, and the sun hidden away. who gets what say? o sweet! o faint‌the hour spreads thin. where is our plateau? is it near? and the elders, light and night? will they be alright? will they be alright.

when to cut the head off a python an ant walking along the fretboard, tuning each string. a man crawling on tiles as the piano plays a somber tone. from beginning to end; from end to beginning, and most important: from end to end since truth can be reached in the end, yet the truth was already there since the beginning. what weird happenings: the wind blowing the pages of the book to a page my eyes mistook as a hook. what a classic passage from the brook to the marsh, the walk a heavy one. do you walk the same as me or does bowing play your fancy? are you the type to pray at night only when no one is watching? worship the snake? the new hip thing? so this is how the country crumbles: so the ant is not hungry so the queen can be full.

in partibus infidelium So the heathens are back with their efforts of ask and do not answer.

So many can wear a cross and still pray to the devil.

the same day, the same second, a dog came in the kitchen, and took for him some bread, he called himself a lucky man but ended up like Bozzo—dead in the eyes—like any man who thinks himself alive.

some babel some cannot go a night without sex. as if one could go without sex; is it the a capella that counts, the sentiment that matters, the level headed rum that works, the very sagrado we all need. some have to murder each night, some take the bus to school with small liquor dolls or balls in their purse or pocket. some go to work in vida and hope for the raise they never get. as if this has not been told before. some go to some beach to pray to their lord to kill the other lords, to save the small ones. the sun roars high tonight on the other side of my fence.

lacustrine

lacustrine San Luis Mission Park, Tallahassee Touch me, Lithely after two failed attempts prima rosa The Rising Seabed in his sea far from her land The End of Meat & Poverty remember this nights we took the boat out to the lake supposed to be a thing rain chooses where rain falls The Trench of Mariana the wind is her howling live each day to die each night as of late Gesture hard to get out once in The Nature of Life to indifference weary of your where Inside Lake Michigan – Poetry While my friends are in Heaven as I lounge here in hell lacustrine The Coming-ins and Going-outs To Lose A Heart By Sunrise Like any other song The Spanish and the Chinese The Rest Treat Take There is Great Superior Lake Between Us The Lady and Lake Ella Hauntings on the Highways

San Luis Mission Park, Tallahassee let me remind you why you love me. is the wind really invisible? are you? nobody knows who robbed the curtains but the show's on and must stay on. a tree fell along the trail. a red cardinal landing on a bridge or a branch, no one can say or tell. did you see it? heard? chirps, the herring, & a squall. is gone the caw? you were here not a minute ago. in the distance, dogs contest over land, and here, the leaves take their breaths & fall to the surface, with a breeze or a gush of gusts, no one can really tell.

Touch Me, Lithely the world is as soft as you make it from the constant drifts of snow hitting the window panes fro and fro as the candle in the kitchen makes a play with all that is outside inside and on every corner that light can touch to the rivers in the lakes underneath the currents pushing the sand debris and fishes to their next and next location as the forests that encompass them make noises farther and wider some not even a bat can hear some not even god will touch it is all a garden in the making and a garden that is crumbling touch me before one of us goes and forgets the other ever existed

after two failed attempts this is not heaven, this is not hell; no heaven above, nor is there a hell below. you look frightened, scared, devastated in the void. where is the cheerful disposition? tranquility in the sea more than me in the rain; more than you are given? what does the parakeet say? where did all the farm animals go? why the long face, mate? have you not seen the world before? have you not entered the crevices, or has half your stock dropped off of the market? have you no decency to tell me to fuck off? do the drums from the sky not warn you? how so does the message never get sent, to then receive what was not sent days later, the railroad stowed and wheeless? how do you walk without four legs? have you ever been to hell? how was it? and in heaven, are the gates closed? so much room for one and not the other. are the refugees fine staying aside? is everyone alright burning inside?

prima rosa why do poets do what they do? why do they say what they say? is it better left unsaid so one can become dead? is the deed done once the last song is sung? is convenience not an issue? are we all generally dead, so any dead is both useless & useful? what would you call a plucked flower, an immediateaging rose? would you call it spring and be done with it? would you call it winter for the sake of summer, & is weather jealous of its unimportance? or shall the last active volcanoes muster what heavenly fire they have left in them or do we call on the most living to relinquish what is most dead —? is forgiveness given in the end? or do we take it instead‌

The Rising Seabed imagine an ocean up to yr knees the water cleaning up the words you wrote on sand imagine sprouts & fountain waterfalls where each wish of a coin is thrown & flipped back to where it came from imagine rain harderthanhail & softer than snow each speck more different than their individual differences more pale & clear than clear & pale most pure & flower the sand fading under the bloom more toxic than words themselves

in his sea far from her land i was offing awful offing far from the shore when after once & a tall wave did the island i was on once dissipate thence offing to another shore

The End of Meat & Poverty was told to eat some preserved meat and now my stomach will not eat any other type of meat than a raw piece of meat

remember this your river flows into my ocean my ocean is your lake

nights we took the boat out to the lake to be as man as my dad to have walked on barbed wire barefoot to have jumped fences and crossed oceans all in the name of my name to be at fault today for every fault yesterday a woman once told me what rusty soft hands of a man like any father by a child would appear to be my little brother beside me in the airport of all places such flattery reminds me of when my only dream was to be like you to handle the dark nights like you how does one how can one compare you to me? as if you made me as if we were meant to gather in history nights like this where one is alone as you father are elsewhere with your family as mine is my absence felt? do the walls yell in tyranny at this indignity? in loving your youngest son you have forgotten about another let me remind you of this other calling the grass mowing the street attempting what you taught me as if tempting was not enough to go into the lake naked to escape naked like the youth

like nymphs raising their heads with their breasts like logs drifting with the wind at night there was a night in my youth that to this day is like this foot remembered salty sweet that till now never left my mouth my mother took me in to a room— while you banged on the door —but you broke in what did you then? what did you do? now you say my memory should be best left without you how does one forget his father? how can one forget his own? did you not say that my life is in shambles and did you not hand me this life and did this life not get ruined by love and friendship and turmoil in delicate and distraught shambles like the lake as straight as unruffled sheets you went in the boat first to tell me or was it to the moon whom steadily rose as the sun fell son grab the plank & paddle it took a big hard long step to the boat drifting inches less than a yard from the littoral it took a wrong row to fall to step into the lake was a mating call for death not once will it take you to a safer place than land the people living in the springs

before us had the pleasure of telling us about the crocs that lived there before them we heard they were ten feet long they would spread in the grass to soak on the thoughts of land not once did we see them but they are there the ripples show they are there the invading iguanas know during the day the lake was clean from crystal skies and green from the palm trees at night

so clear turned so dark

the transition was as transparent as the coastal bed to the sea floor were we stricken? did the sudden change from dusk to darkness hurl us into a night star? trembles shivered down the boat and we were gasping in water as our legs were pulled down under my imagination proclaimed any minute now and the sky will be swallowed by the lake did we throw away the cake? was dinner postponed that day? the intense fear was subdued by you my father your anxiety was completely absent father what fun we had that night

having a view only a fish can tell when we came back mother welcomed us with hugs and leftovers from supper did you take the boat out to the lake with your father? for several times did you not several times did you not have a father there by your bed instead you had birds during the day and bats at night to stay by your window to accompany you before the owl hoots at you before the waves of oblivion crash upon you like they do each night against the shores of humanity instead of emptiness instead of what lets you go what weighs is either dropped along the way or sought heavily what is heavenly? father o father wh— where do we go from here? what do we call ourselves? look my way before you shoot me look both ways love before you cross the street without me

supposed to be a thing i suppose i should file for divorce tonight hand in my papers tomorrow i suppose the rain will come another day i suppose i need to step off the ladder & call it a day hang up my hat & jacket untie what is around my collar i suppose these chains are too heavy i propose a new gathering weak & strong in one corner rich & poor in another & of the other corner? i suppose if this is a triangle but what of the square? suppose the weather is as drowsy as last week do we prepare for next week? do we propose to the weather? to mother nature herself through thick & thin, even with all her bad days in spring falls to summer winters suppose we reach for the cube & obtain instead a smaller cube suppose it is as if it is as as it is like it is like it will be if it is as it is to be an is it like an is if it can be an is with an if suppose we put the cube in a box within a drawer where is it now? where did it go? which desk was it? suppose it was a closet when you reach in, what do you get?

rain chooses where rain falls so, sun of mine that is on, when the wind is gone where does it go? does it sleep in acres of snow? or does it stay by the sea most of the day? and at night, do you know? or is that for the moon to show? and when the wind goes, does it know where it shows next? or is that for the air to decide? what is more fair? the wind or the air? the skin or the muscle protruding thin? what grows in sin? which earth holds its hopes high on mirth? who asks of whom? is it doom? or shall we appreciate the boom too? most of all, sun, where does rain walk anon to? to council the pain of the wind? to speak to thunder and lightning ere the two go elsewhere?

The Trench of Mariana drop a pebble down the hole deep—tremble it takes an hour to be feeble deeper than the tallest mountain the darkest fish assemble more black and clear than the lightest birds of everest are white and stable like an angel or so goes the fable do the whales visit there who knows does leviathan sit there who knows do devils eat there or does god play cards over there or and here then again what is our intention to show at the bottom of the ocean to see where we will be at the end of our history? surely there is a man with reasoning who can explain the collection of data down in the deep blue sea black and when we create atlantis will we commit the same atrocities? either we start swimming—or we start digging the more we grow—the less land we all have what will we make out of this insanity? why the heavy load? to view the sea floor

to make observations of immense pressure? oh geez—why the mess? do we take turns appreciating the schismatic overture of sea walls? lighting one section out of eight hundred million—and just one wall! does the anchor follow the submarine or did we need longer anchors then? before the black death anchors were used to measure how far the dead go before hitting rock bottom before cancer was seen in the night sky anchors became commonplace to hold posture before sea battles became common is the trench then where we make our bed? or shall we shoot for mars and the moon? tell me—do we follow neptune or reach the reach of zeus?

the wind is her howling i. am i like the rest of them a sheep dog pig all of them a pig dog sheep mother earth is bound to her servants im living in my own dust as are we id pocket a change for thee but my pockets are empty ive lived near the sea the gulf of mexico the pacific of all oceans and the great lakes and you continue to impress me how is it suffering under those you love? i am only helping you but who am i? who is this person to tell you who i am & how i help & how ive helped & how id help & how im helping to hurt how i throw away my trash and it ends up in a sea of trash how i brake your stone to make lava how i wash away your rain with acid o how i help in the hurt are you screaming? are we making you cry each night? who do we punish for burning in the bruises? o mother gray hair as long as rivers o mama mama mama terra what is that sound?

what do you know? the wind is her howling the sea her oyster the air her refreshing self and the fire her cleansing water to clean and stone to cut the meat provided for thee and not three more or it be gluttony O how we bash the stone on your face with money— i? and do you still love me terra? and yes love are we fighting light? the next day and the next does every spread the dark? until the four percent left of material light is gone for ever? dark energy can only consume so much blood drop after blood drop even enduring winter and enduring summer are we under bad weather gun shot to gun shot we are in tumultuous battle every brother against mother every daughter against father every wonder against water red and then more red bite each other bite! bite! bite! bit! and then more bite! flesh after flesh

bone after bone head after head the next day and the next and yes love what was that i cannot hear a word near the bombing drums and fireworks and cracks in the attic might we move to a better spot a safer spot would be nice for you and me eh what do the likes of you say are we still in love or are you just holding my hand through the killings or through what was said on the radio on the television on every broadcast the message: get back get back if you beg for your head get back retreat defeat is our stance ? in prague do you beg for one more chance ? in sicily in france in syria do we dance all of us on our hands does someone else step with their toes as best they can ? all our bodies stockpiled in the freezer adjoining bodies conjoined with a lull step the line to heaven like love under the moonlight

live each day to die each night my head faces the corner of a wall‌ how much of my soul is left. are souls sold off without consultation? can my eyes get used to the night sky? will they ever see clearly in pitch blackness? in this forest, there is a lake. in this lake, treasure can be found in the deep. no one can see what you see. in the dark, the wild and savage roam in hunt for the young. how many souls get lost in between the trees? the sign says to not go in to the woods, yet all the roads we have built lead to there. in regards to the holes in my chest and, specifically, the arrows at my back, when do the scars heal? how much of my soul is kept? patches of magenta and yellow flowers whistle. their whispers course with the wind, telling a story that has no end. they speak of the gold at the bottom and how it is very hard to carry it to the top.

as of late something died in us long ago and no one knows what. asked almost everyone and no one answers. so many days with the sun outside and the rain inside. so many nights ending with a fight, sleeping alone. who else must my knife stab and wound? the clerk called and said we owe debt. what else? someone asked not too long ago what my problem was and my reply was to kick the chair and bang my head in. what does a child do with a knife? chop? or stop to kneel and discuss the dilemma? where is the sacrifice? where the martyr of men? do you juxtapose me with venom? why the poison? somebody once told me to eat and drink from the ground, not from the sky. lately, all my hands have touched is a desert.

Gesture i the green

&

I

&

The Red

im a bit too nice

&

A Bit Too Mean

i am the sum of all the conversations & markings my mouth has had w/ the innocent and the guilty

&

I am Reverence in The Making

i wonder what people think of me

but then again

I wonder What people Think of you

i wonder if the spring is best for hunting the body the organ the man so & so deterioration what welt

or against fucking with vs a a with the

If the summer Is best for water The mind The audience The woman For all time Acceleration Conundrum Belt He takes up time

& she the effort i wrote that before

but

I like that Gesture whore

i sin

&

I sin

well we can agree on that

&

Be on the same Page

I am a riddle i have a tittle i am everyone

& &

I am someone Specific I am a person

i am as all people are a bate fed to the dogs until

& flesh becomes bone &

Bone Becomes Treat I am god

i am the devil i am the father of god

& I am The Godfather & I am the Self

i am a wealth of health

& i am the savior

i shit more than my mouth

&

before

spanish on one side i in the garden in the forest in the lake you

I am an Owner I must get Off my High Horse

English in the Other versus

I

&

In the park In the fortress In the sea Me

i am the citizen of freedom & i have no need to interject my two cents

&

I have the Power of Govt I hate to watch Improper Border Checks

greed in wall street,

Chaos in the Middle East

my boys getting picked on by other boys teaching the school of violence

Kids shooting other kids Rhyming with impotence

i am a city in france

&

bombs to both, bombs to all the last i i am a bed of trees a flock of wilderness a forest of leaves

or

I am the City In England Who is to say who gets to be City I

& I fire the immense head do you reconcile me with menace?

Do you reconcile with me, menace?

hard to get out once in a little birdie once told me and then shoved me into the ferry. hard to get out once in. everybody in a hurry. birds keep flying low in the valley from all of the airplanes taking up space. birds keep diving into my range. is suicide taken out of vain? who cares if we have the bloody same name. you have your strip of giza and i have my lot of land. you have your pots of gold and i have my grain of sand. who wins in this battle of wits? who stands and who sits? who gets to hold the nice and naughty lists while others elsewhere are blown to bits? where, where, where! who gets eaten by the bear? who pays to stare? why, when and where! who stays and who leaves today, tonight, tomorrow?

The Nature of Life this is some ago. is failing when in question my motive. for is not my this some this. this quote. several peace, no ago. there the silence. test. will not my test silence. failing my last rising all to test. some judgement. the streets. question my answer will not answer pass my rising streets. motive. quest and be my years ago. motive. not when next christ arise? volume some judge died volume the streets. pass my all. who is this. this my next the volume in some this. this ago. the answer years ago. when christ arise? the silence. some test my christ arise? is judgement. judge died some question is pass and fail there a judge died in streets. no motive. answer when the volume rising all to test. some judgement. peace, no christ arise? keeps there no all. who and will my judgement. streets. silence. contends? be my volume is answer to some quote. several ago. will rising quest all. who pass and test streets. fail not my ago. silence. motive.

to indifference what is the difference between infinity and eternity? draw a circle as best you can, then dot the middle. now you have the latter. to get the former, pinch that circle you drew until you get two tear droplets tip-toeing to the dot. notice the difference? one is whole, while the other stitch is halved. notice, too, how the dot is the same for both. set the bearing straight. which man tells you what you can and cannot have? let us know. who really owns all of history?

weary of your where o rain, how you follow us around; grant me thy will to speak on the matter. grand subject, holy of holies, lifting this world by the finger in swirls until the good men die off and fall down up to space: where do you float in your mourning clothes? are the springs as sproutful without you there by their side? do you know what a leaf is & where the woodpecker pecks? have you any clue as to what we think of you? thou art oft as wilted grain. life is a plain that cannot contain any more of a gain than sin and pain. and there goes my tongue, and out pop my eyeballs before my nose and stomach become empty of any stain. at where do muses sing perchance? is it near my footsteps? shame bequeaths the ordinary, the homeless are fools and fools are left to tarry to the dead. the bears sip in our flesh, where no man would dare step. in hell, there is no exit unless guided with homo fuge. who else walks these hallways as stone? who sheds the universal bone?

Inside Lake Michigan world, in lost knowledge. left known in that—my raw. you too you say beyond clear is fear to sea knowing it well. some fear to plank before the lake. that fear to be jumping all say soul knows. left some you than my sea is all fear to be fear. gave you to soul to fear to jumping better my—my sea my lost you off the bitter lake. boat the raw. you know the lake. all that is soul is fear. gave saying away, you know. left bitter sea bitter and well. some say better is to be the plank before raw. you say world away, sea and raw. you the fear to raw. you well. some soul lost away, jumping raw. you the world, fear. gave bitter better all that you off than all that it knows too the lake. fear to that—my sea well. some world, fear to that—my soul the world, fear to know. left it some known clear is soul at all better than that soul jumping the cold fear. gave you cold knowing it in the boat. the sea is well. some lake.

Say what you want to about Misery. She at least keeps me company.

I have no excuse to give to you right now.

I don’t mind eating leftovers from last night, but damn do I love drinking from the lake.

Boohoo, boohoo, I still haunt you.

What desert should I traverse through next? Which balcony shall I shout from again?

How pathetic the news not speaking of me.

Then again, how you are without me.

I prefer the subtleties of the walk to the ladder as the cat eats again the pigeon. There by the feast do we meet and greet.

How formal you are.

How informal thee can be.

So I walked up the ladder and fell from the porch but caught myself over the chains and hell-torch.

No one ever listens to me. Not even with a microphone or a saxophone.

Pretty soon, no one will have a tongue.

Who keeps singing in the morning?

Who keeps drowning at night?

At night, in the lake, sun-fish shine and sing a color unalike in each scale.

The gator waits patiently for its turn on the tube. Once its turn, it bites.

I could care less what you say to me after all that you have said. Words no longer have any effect. Burdensome are the conversations in which we partake.

Terrible is the cause of the Panopticon

of-Language. No literature can escape the clutches of the talons of this eagle.

Poetry is held by the gut as well.

Money in this, fame in that, who else will fuck me this weekend?

Minus symbol, minus fortune, what else do you hold in that hyphen of yours that conjoins me and thee?

Or would you rather the dash that speeds up history to replace you with me?

I’m devastated. I’m done for.

They’ve killed my wife and children.

Poetry You ever, what an angel, wonder, o what sounds do trees make under, or does sleep arrive to every meeting so the palm can rest on its little corridor?

What halls do these hands build for, the halls of liberty or the boughs of death? Which place to take or store the heart, famous, empty of love?

O, what an angel, to tame the dragon, the dove with the pile of gold, the rabbit with wings.

Soon enough, there will be no shore to shove the currents against, the nothingness of things.

How many more fine mornings must we watch before the waterfall of night?

Which paradise do we hammer unto our belongings this day? And on that day, where is the light?

Much has been seen of poetic streams in forests; might we find a puddle or a lake, unsurely at best.

Patches of desert roam the countryside till sight ends and the rest begins to rest.

While my friends are in Heaven as I lounge here in Hell Only angels know what God likes.

God likes angels.

It’s been five years since I said the names of Jesus in vain.

What a load of potty-putty and the fire station complains about having too many white and red and not enough black.

It seems to me this whole city would rather have a dead mailman than have word be spread across the streets of how there is no apology for all the screams we brought onto we.

You know exactly what I mean.

From stripping us naked to the back of the barn where we work but don’t stay; from making us the horses you hit continually with sheaths, till we bled in the back, you see exactly what I see.

Forgive me for bringing you to this place, but some want to forget even the best memories.

For what? Fear of a past that is best left unmentioned? Worry to amend taught historical events that feel unamendable, perhaps. Yet, we are all wrong.

If I cannot forgive, how can you forget?

If I cannot remember, how can you repair the drainage from the pipes under my sink, or the flower pot that fell from the porch one red morning while I was sleeping?

Rocks underneath, poetry into birds & whistles, the fish sing what the wind will not.

Ancient fathers yell at their current children to stand up from their knees, to stand up to their enemies, to die freely in the cities.

What more could the market want for her office?

What more does the owl need for more time?

What goes well here? What fits there?

How many more levels of bureaucracy can we fit in this one-floor hotel?

Again, forgive me for our beginning; blame me; rip me to shreds.

Yet I cannot forget Trayvon Martin & Tamir Rice,

I cannot settle down until their blood rests and is the last drop shed.

I will not fight. I will kneel down here where beneath me, every human soul rests.

I will kneel, but I will not settle.

I will kneel, but I will not settle.

Como mi abuela me dijo cuando yo era su hijo, chico y niĂąo: La vida es simple. Hay mucho de todo.

Drove all of Georgia just to find home was in Florida. Working for the devil on hourly pay, the lower wage. Woke up to find you still missing from my heart, nights locked in dance with tears.

All while Martin & Rice look through my window.

lacustrine languorous—languid—like— as in lake like like like oyster like cake unless hurricane

The Coming-ins and Going-outs The gods do not live with us anymore. They have grown tired of our old tidings, as we have of our own living. Why do we ignore the dead?

Was it something they said? Years pass by and still we are as young as we were old.

What do you make out from all this gibberish?

What prospect is contained within that heart?

Is love not sans bound?

To Lose A Heart By Sunrise Settle down, settle down; there is much talk of lethargic antidotes of histamine being implemented at your local grocery store, and apparently your friendly neighborhood has become the talk of the nearby town, and while on the subject, the gas station has lost all its gas.

Frequent miles on a punch-in card being punched-in frequently.

How convenient the candy store only a mile away.

Mother says no candy before breakfast.

I concur, but only because it’s Mother.

Settle down, there is room for breakfast.

The club is open for all to dance.

Shelves are neatly stacked; the photos are hanged from the ceiling. Mornings are quiet. Settle down, there is room for one more if you all will just shut up for one moment.

A tulip is having its petals pulled slowly one by one, till each stem is cursed.

Slowly, the roses settle down for winter in preparation for construction of a new part for the dying heart, its veins our roads, our hearts its beacons.

While you danced to the waves of the ocean, I lost my heart to the sea.

Like any other song Is it a sin to think the way I think? Days since I’ve written a word. Is it a sin to think the way I think on Mondays or should I visit this Sunday?

Whatever shall I do when the corn runs out?

Father says the seeds are low. Excuse me for a moment while I find my hands.

There they are, my right and left. There does my right lend a hand to the elderly, there goes my left with a shield in hand ready to uphold the laws of zero—one—& two.

Steady flows the river, I hear it too. How riveting it swells between the green and the red, between the living and the dead.

Do you feel it too? How each line crosses each other line?

To dine—to starve. To shine under the wrong light. Tell me something, sod. Where do you take after work in such a hurry?

The ferry can only take so much in its belly.

Like any other song, the cricket plays the legs of the alcoholic.

But hold it in your hands if you can, the world already has her music.

The Spanish and the Chinese The browns and the yellows are what they used to call these diff types of peeps; and when i say they, i mean the whole of the majority. While they might call themselves light, they got a past that ain’t too pretty.

While they might call themselves pretty, they wear dry blood for makeup. Pity.

Who gets to call what pretty. Who gets to wear the petty dress?

Who calls shots on pouring makeup on others? Who drops makeup on cities?

My family loves visiting cities without makeup on. We wipe it off in the blaring heat.

We wipe it off sometimes before we sleep.

Conundrums ring in the alleys of the deep.

Shield me from being prey of the night.

A Chinese proverb said maybe.

Who knows about the child who sings out water? How tainted is our water? A hose churns out dirt. Water has no say in what stays & what drowns. Fire burns even angels. Flies will suck even the most succulent. Timber trails along the canon of the mountain.

The sun shines even on the devil.

What do the Chinese fain about? About heaven?

The Spanish in me laughs at their heaven. It looks just like the one in our backyard.

How chewy the hearts of our enemies.

How thirsty those beyond the walls.

Our wells are full & theirs are empty. Our child is happy.

Long live the hell of stupidity, Bukowski.

Bring me my keys, Bukowski.

Brand me with money & honey. Sojourn me from the coldly bloody, Bukowski, it’s going to get dark tonight. Enrapture me in blankets. Take me for a stroll along the mid-weather greens of April.

Enrapture me in blankets

before the rapture, before the rupture.

Encase this country in smithereens before the coming of the Spanish & Chinese.

My uncle is Chinese. He takes his bike, riding to work each night. Vain is the fan that rows with the wind.

Fools are the hearty and spoiled. We must eat our dinner, be full from the meat.

Take our children, wash their feet; hold, and then let go.

The Chinese and Spanish are invading with held hands, locked lips. They have no say walking here. Our Queen Elizabeth would rather have our heads on platters for the rich & wealthy to eat. The sick & poor have no say with what goes on in Manhattan!

Our wells are full & theirs are empty.

The Rest you’re in a hole and don’t know how to get out. you want to get out but the whole hole is big, very big. you’re in this hole, and you can see the top, but you can’t reach it. you see the top, and it is high up, but you can never reach it from down below, way down from where you cannot see a thing, and people keep screaming down here. what do you do in such and such? you forget about the situation to go on with the rest of your night. lie in lithe till nigh. forget about ever seeing day. in the Lethe, wondering what else lay in this river, you see the hole in the boat, and you wait the rest of the sink staring up at suns.

Treat Take Treat taste taken take talk took a take taunt tick tried on trial tack trout taught rot to wrought roil and toil. Tainted term instigates temperate temp temperature tempt stricken and staked with culture vultures vouching for more verification to relinquish the reckoning of the dead birds out in the streets cats dogs deer by the side of the road writ with rotten sweat. Chain of changes charged with unorthodox upheaval upheld in ulterior motives made for makeshift models messed with in missed interior inferior modes. Matches made for the taking firestarter camping caught through subjugation and determination for a better day than yesterday.

Crack rocks on table basement pavement.

Bricks on the wall bricks in the floorboard of the houses big white house.

No one knows where is the big white house.

Cracks on rocks cracks on the floorboard cracks up on the ceiling kneeling pavement.

No one knows where the street goes.

Only that it leads somewhere nowhere over there.

There is There is a certain heaviness that borders the emptiness found in my pockets.

There is—the start of every new sentence.

Yet my pockets aren't empty, for if they were, then would this be nonsensical poetry, which it isn't, is it not?

Is this talking out of the ass or is the ass hollow too?

And I do talk of the donkey from the metamorphosis of a man to donkey.

There is a certain hamperness one can take from a bottle of milk to a night of drinking with friends dead.

And I do speak of those next to you.

Is it right to ask what is right?

Lately, I have no clue.

There is a certain heaviness that shifts on my shoulders whenever the going gets through and my pain gets closer to you.

A certain frightened little creature attempting to reach the innards of you.

There is a certain speech one must say before the taking of a cup and the pouring out of tea. Yea, a certain maniacal figure attempting to pour out the remains of what we call speech.

A certain certain that thinks itself certain, but knows not what you speak of. This certain and that certain against each certain that is certain of not being certain.

Yes, a certain certain that is certain

you know not what you speak of.

There is in my drawers a hamper and a hamper and a weight like a shelf filled with drawers of uncertainties.

There is nothing of that.

A tentative march, a formal escape.

There is a plan to all of this escape.

Do you not see the workings in every cog of the clock?

In every roost of the cock there is a certain speech that must be said before the taking and the pouring of some uncertainty. There is what is to be said of what is to be said of there is. Only there is what you say there is.

There for the morning, to be washed in the evening, to be set down at the ending. Bet there is cake for the afternoon. There, for only you know what is soon. Only you let what goes through. Of you, there is.

Great Superior Lake Between Us I must get to the top of the mountain to see the whole lake as it was & shall be.

My journey will not be filled with haste but with patience. May passion be the cloak over the skin of my vest. There is no better tomorrow than what today has set out for yesterday.

Come as any may, my trek will not be theirs. Ever in my way, the hollow insides of my eyes must project the mountain I must climb and the lake swam through— to get to you on the other side of this great superior lake between us.

The Lady and Lake Ella The streak of waves created by the White Ibis resemble a lane for the plane to land and she does, her wings back on her lap.

Later on during the walk around, birds white as the light that shines on top of clouds flew around the trees that surround the clouds.

There was no quiet lake, no quell deep within its confines. Not even another human being could take away my attention. Closer to the end, my steps lead me to where the litter stirred, floated.

About ten meters nearby did ducklings pick at the garbage in the water. What are we against, the backdrop of the landscape, or what is right in front of us? Where will the White Ibis fly to next? Clearly the food is not alright.

Several days now and the walk around still is as hot and dry as the desert that encircles against us. The clocks stroke the whiskers of noon, and we all stood still for a split second.

Not one question why the air was so wet with tears of fear and dread; not one patient breath was took, only despair was exhaled.

For just this minute, the second stands & stays.

It is night now. The walk has taken me to the geese, where they scour and sleep.

I have no qualm taking the walk alone.

She continues to follow me, though. Whatever for, I don’t know. She keeps quick and sometimes goes ahead to somehow catch up.

Yet she is a bird, and I am dirt.

She is the sky, and I am a tablecloth in the wind. She wins, and I count away my losses like a tree in autumn waving goodbye to its leaves. The fish splash and the turtles rest for hours on their backs.

She keeps close in fear of my consummation.

What else should my lips say? To be with me the rest of the way around for eternity? Birds cannot fly wingless.

They would rather have their nests filled

than be eggless like the night sky without stars.

No matter, for I have sought the secret matter that belittles us, tortures, calls us by name.

A certain fear resides in-between our toes and I cannot name it. I stop along the way to find a table to play chess with the present as the past and future watch. It gets ever more intense.

No one wins, of course. Getting up & staying on track, almost there. The Gazebo in the middle, and her on the coast to avoid the main traffic. We could lock eyes, but we would rather not for some reason.

Will you go ahead of me? Here seems to be fine for now. Will you get me a cup of tea, too?

Hauntings on the Highways There is a me in team, just as you can find tea in a team.

Pass the forest fire by the interstate.

Pardon my rush. The wait is not over.

On my way back from the north, a whole field of green gone in a week.

Pardon my french, nothing fresh.

Love keeps swallowing my bowels & gonads.

Miles of memories connected by streams of power lines. Nothing ever makes sense.

The bells stay ringing but no one gets the door.

Knocks on the walls, debris from the ceiling, a million cars a minute pass this complex of Mile 160, a hundred more to go.

The motel reeks of shaving cream.

Groped luggage, the clouds move opposite me and drag my past away from me.

What other ghouls haunt the sidewalks this fine day? After so many enjambed lines, one must take care to slow down at a yellow light. Somewhere in this invoice, a butterfly hatches from its cocoon to tell me more about you. Somewhere in this imitatio is an illusion more far-fetched than a flying squirrel.

My spanish guitar cries for its mother, as I do every night. No one takes note of the incoming traffic. Take the next exit right, and there you will find my heart.

I got pulled over too many times this year to rain-check the engine. I’m past due a month now, and it’s snowing in Orleans.

My boss takes leave for the century.

Goodbye to God and all of His friends.

He left a memo about purging innocence.

As we grow, the child in us huffs smoke the whole drive home.

I am certain someone else will open the box to let Pandora sway her arms.

Only she knows the way to our horrors.

My graduation cap flew out the window.

Gotta slow down to see which way to turn.

Who knows a better route than the one my grandpa taught me?

He died some years ago and my little brother stays coughing out tears.

Several years ago, I went down the tunnel that has no end.

With no flashlight and no headlights, I travelled without a map or a mug of tea.

The road was runny with lava, and my tires lost their thread midway.

My grievances have already been given. In light of all this sad news, there is forgiveness.

With all of the dead buried by the highway, it gets harder to build newer graves than the ones from last month.

Still we have the power to forgive each hour of the day. Does the moon tell bedtime stories to this day? The sun in all this rain still watches over us, as though there was need to make sure no leave was without goodbye.

Traffic jams the whole way through, southbound.

sepulcher

sepulcher from love From NYT To PTSD The President’s Box The pigeon was free and I was in a cage so much living wasted on dying Capitalism Everyday is a Holiday in Brazil mexico To Their Whimper Yeast in the East Hungry Again Our Swan Song Breathless Tissues for a Rainy Day Between the Letters hoot, hoot, toot, toot To Drink Of Its Blood Watched under the watch and The Book of the Dead The Same Pond Here lies, there tells o say can you see Sunrise Fleas Bend Jumps and only Cane Season Trolley passing by heartburn Away Random Consequence to who to who to who ode to a feather of eden sepulcher Seen from the Lake Near Waywheder bird canine December 27th in you go your portrait fell days ago Cliffhanging A Liable Severance a song to know I and the rose on that road Poem R Weary of your Where to sons Horns and Hooves Or So And So Empson and Merrill Meditations on the Angel in my Dreams fiend—pull of tide a waterlogged chest there ain’t much sun when she comes there are too many humans in this line for death Remember me st peters industrial church Sometimes in Jerusalem Rhetoric Life Over Vicarious Earth epistle letter bohemian grove death

from love you ask me to do such a simple task but when will the world be rid of poets? the better question lies in how to be rid of you when waking up with you just moments ago, yet you are not here any more than shakespeare is in his sonnets. every image with you lies interminably in my head till i learn how to erase portraits from my hormones— from love— so you are dead to me as i am to you— no matter, ive given death the thought and she seems to be more willing than you. i seem to have a prospect in your suffering, making yr love for me look more and more as the sun looks over the coast—there was once a full look of sun there but now only half over the water shows and how the bugger will be swallowed soon—oh dear.

From NYT To PTSD Have you ever heard of Kabul? It is a site that gives host to bark-twisting molar-splitting nightmares that only jazz might cure. Some folks haven’t made it back to the top of the hill to see the sun as it was before Kabul took more than was intended. Jail can be hell in the mind as well. Lowell would know. Abdullah from Tanzania has had experience with the Devil, has had his body stripped from manhood and family. Have you ever been to Bucharest? Cold place, I hear, filled with Yeti and cold men. Or Chiang Mai? Maybe Guantanamo Bay? O yes, you know Guantanamo.

The President’s Box The flocks land on their seats to witness the feast, the inauguration of the flocks of masses landing on their seats to witness the indignation of one country’s fear.

Who gets to go up to the box? Who cares, so long as you’re not in the box.

Why not the back of the bus?

You fit there nice & fine, it looks, so why not stay there the whole time? You’ll be alright if you can keep mouths shut & eyes locked tight, then we might bode well as Master + servant.

Lord Jesus of all might, save us from this plight.

The Lord only knows how to hold us all in the back of the bus.

It’s as if the world knows it’s going to explode.

If you ask me, it’s all fucked but I’m in the President’s box so I can only look out the window to see the mass of chaos outside.

Gotta get my wings to fly to heaven. Gotta right what is left to write the last song left.

Gotta stop working for the devil to become an angel.

Gotta stop wearing the cross while working for the devil.

Gotta do this, gotta do that but ya betta wash them hands afta ya touch that box.

The flocks land on their cable lines to spectate the mass of hawks gassing the air outside.

It’s become such a problem that not even music can help.

It’s just us, and we take up busses; it’s just us + us + us, & we taking up the bus.

The pigeon was free and I was in a cage Said Abdullah Salim from Tanzania who seems alright right now but at any moment might jump from his chair to hide from The Darkness. The man was crucified, privately. So many victims of an unlawful system, kept under supervision for years in a small-cell prison. Abductions held without awaited trial, hourly. The world is a cruel dog, like love, and the people are fleas that bite & tear at the skin & hair but the dog loves us anyway. Mr. Salim, you are but too familiar with the dogs. Mr. Salim, the pigeon was free and you were in a cage.

What thoughts beckoned you to be free like the pigeon perched on a tree singing the blues, heart beating to smithereens? Where were you then, your chest hiding the Goosebumps as a water fountain gets draped over your head?

Oh dear, how I wish you were near for me to serve you some warm tea and remove the hook still notched at your back.

How young we all were, then, the nest the best place to rest. The tree is not a cage. The pigeon is not free without a tree.

That pigeon was a tree that grew its roots into the back of your head, drilled in to assure you, my hurt friend, how there are still wings, how there is still chaotic music blaring in the streets.

so much living wasted on dying The universe is well-aware when two tango. I’d go so far to say the universe is in the workings of how two tango well.

We tangoed on the roofs of the ballrooms for a few minutes just to feel the wind running down the skin we were given.

Didn’t take much for you to let go and spin off into the dissonant distant fog that is the city-scape of our past bones, iron, rust & all. Don’t take much for you to call me a skeleton picking at its ribs. I’ve been known to breakdance on a picnic table, foreclosure a sign nearby pointing to foreclosure, paint over my back. Signed the petition to bury the dead in you underneath the dead.

Only so much waiting left to sell in the garage sale before dying in a living art.

Capitalism you need to see one side, then the other. you need to hold it & then let go. at risk of never finding it again, look at the box. note how most are in & some are out. look at the box again. see between the lines, hold the corners & edges. it is square? or is it a cube? cut it in half. what do you get? is there a pyramid? is it green or is it red? does it have an eye? is that your best friend, or your worst enemy?

Everyday is a Holiday in Brazil Everyday is a holiday when it rains.

Everyday is filled with coagulation of the rest of our days on this God-forsaken planet. Everyday is a test, a piece of the written will you have yet to completely write, or has it been finished already more than once? Everyday passes once, then again when mentioned off a shoulder and onto a tongue.

How many of us still have a tongue?

Everyday, I ask that ever-day is a day yet to be won. Every one act play becomes its own day.

Who has yet to name the eighth day? Night?

Swooned is the moon, a Monday that cares so deeply for serenity amongst the days with their nights.

What chides and goads more than light does her children?

Not each day gets to hold the end of its end, the end of a matchstick.

Everyday we pour out the rain, the wash left for the next weekend, the rain that was meant for the following weekend, for the following drought. What else do we wait for with open arms?

How wasteful a sentence is, only to find out a sentence never ends once its begun.

Mother, I remember the first day you left me alone to suffer.

It was August, and these days, they were short. It wasn't until November that I noticed how difficult it is to see someone you never knew become someone you've always known, & my father keeps telling me a signature is needed to get what is great when nothing is great & everything is fate.

It’s amazing what you can get done in a day it you worked at it everyday. Every day is a challenge beset by the notions of relinquishes besieged by the tribes of tomorrow bestowed in essence & language betrothed with the rightful king of the land.

Everyday is a wasteful day if you don’t get out of bed right.

Everyday is a day stuck in no man’s land.

Everyday is a dump on rotten land.

Days arguing with Dad, nights not saying goodnight to Mom. Everyday is a holiday in Brazil, my pops told me. Can’t figure what that means; my only guess is to go Brazil to see what he means when he says Rio de Janeiro does not know what is night.

Everyday is a sentence waiting to be read.

Everyday is a red dot on a blue backdrop.

mexico the land of drugs sex and alcohol the land of blood guns and isopropyl chain fence dog bone sand loan plain plane plan fireplace phone planet of woah and woe hanging bodies naked not on bed but in air craft past port portraiture ethanol endangered entanglements daily entropy in the streets walls desert tongue in a box several dead in the desert severed heads found in a box and the fox still out for the rabbit and the rabbit still out for carrots and the carrot is out for revenge against the tropics topic fence devour limb torso tension tore tense tire torn on the side of the road side of sin city nationwide apocalypse overhead overheard on the radio helicopter hitman hundreds hindrance show me the way to heavenly juarez chihuahua en la frontera medicine of mexico city jury always on duty temperance of temperature a real hassle in my back bone for back hugs for honey literature written with streaks of red green and white plantations said dead making correct crop profit crippled corn distraught district distractions weekly monthly hourly pay with pay you give me a treat and me tearing at the seams to make sure you get a feat greater than ancestral freedom on feet and over overall overnight once there was a quiet. once, there were flowers.

To Their Whimper Beautiful/Expedient/And with as they/whisper/beauty comes are, the/to & from/death, not angels from/us/with a heaven fall/lovely/bang or a to their/ /whimper, graves as/experiments/but with men pick/several/a thud at their/deft notes/so loud, wings &/padded/God Himlet them/proclaim/Self must go to/tell the railways/check to float down/feather/make sure the rivers,/plunge/the ends each petal/expunged/don’t get a weight-/of nothing/any more less feather./less/rowdier than their own beginnings.

Why/must my mother suffer?

Why south of here/tears?

Alone in my own wilderness, i become the child i always was, huddled in my corner of survival against the bear that eats itself.

I attempt to call my ex but i have hung up the phone already.

It’s too late. She’s gone already.

My mother suggests for me to find another heart to eat from.

My fathers pays the bills for us to feed well on ourselves.

My father hurts, so he hurts the tree my grandpa grew out back.

The leaves fall so it must be Fall.

The snow melts so it must be Spring.

The angels dance to the beat of the waves, their cadence set with the tug and pull of the moon the beast lays on. No one goes much to the forest to starve much, no soul rests in the garden as such.

Instead, desolate beings walk in a rush.

My mother is right.

Picket fences along the trail we scorch through, my climb like climbing skyscrapers of shadows pierced by the light of the morning sun, the view between the cracks like looking inside an occupied shell.

Yeast in the East Are you blind to the Light? How many glasses of Wine before you can see straight Ahead to where there are no Shadows, to only find fire?

Poems written in the Middle East, given to poets from The Capital West. Sent, They were, not with reluctance.

An image held by its Tooth, teething at the Prospect of No teeth.

Hungry Again Father means chaos in Arabic.

Mother means peace in war. Ear cut off and bled, only to find the ear there again.

Was the goat fed or full is the tick?

Our Swan Song Sad to know the children of men were made long ago to only have the children of refugees kept out from the paradise made for the children of children.

Language has divided us. We have forgotten what we are hearing when we speak to each other: our children.

Breathless You drown for so long you forget you ever had lungs.

Outside, i thought it was the moon.

Turned out to be just you; a silhouette of a painting I once drew.

Tissues for a Rainy Day What war can do...

What war has done...

Biodegradable, aren’t we all?

The infinitesimal textures of the ceiling. The way you dress up the sky. These are the reasons why I stay alive.

When does the road end? I saw a picture of us once, of you standing there next to me.

Thought I had burned all the pictures of us, but I guess we’re still history.

Death is tired of Death.

Afraid of the dead.

A daughter holding her mother by the street as a mother holds her daughter by the street.

Seven nights wound up by days in a glass shaken, not stirred to avoid any missing moments spilling over the ugly carpet, bought but not hung up.

Death is but a shadow covering the tracks our children make, covering what we have made.

To party, to pray.

So many fucking ads, so many fucking holidays.

Creating monsters just so they can eat us.

Pie and cupcakes.

Corn, red wine, cheap plates, napkins and tea.

Just for you and me.

Como sea, la vida es bella.

Swimming in the rain these last few minutes.

No trail is unforgiven by men, no land is unkempt for man.

They still shoot horses, don’t they?

Between The Letters I had sent you a letter with pennies once.

You received it torn, each of the pennies gone, the letter ripped up. The mailman was made to deliver letters; the sun was borne to shine. Hermes helps here & there, and has his discussions with Apollo from time to time. Yet I inquire about this letter every blue and red moon, and still have no response.

To who do I go to ask about the ripped letter, about the bitten ripe orange.

How do you fix it when it’s gone?

The ceiling looks like it’ll crack any minute.

A face can be seen in-between the smudges of what we call letters. Showers upon showers of waste, and the sky will let up & cave in. Where is this letter now? Do you still have it framed, locked in some cellar deep in your dreams? Did you ever, when shone, take it & throw it in the fire as I did with our memories? What did I write in that letter, what was it that made them tear it apart? Each penny must have been worth less than a leaf, yet they were each gone, replaced with something missing. Once, you had given me a promise.

How do I fix what you continue to brake?

hoot, hoot, toot, toot Who loves me and who hates me?

Who gives me food, who takes my money?

Who knows me and who abhors me?

Who lights a candle for me?

Who dresses me in feathers and honey?

The owl dives headlong to the nearest tree as two doves land near the branch where the owl stands, and the doves peck at it.

They mob at it with their claws, mobbing and mobbing like the mob gangsters they are.

Someone took my dinner and coffee.

Someone took my milk and toffee.

Someone took my sugar and buttery pancakes, and now I have no breakfast.

Someone beat me indelibly to the best.

Drove past acres of acres of farmland that eventually turned into mirrors of city life that no society can escape. Silence is necessary at times where there is a convolution of time, when my master can no longer muster a word.

Who tells me to walk left when it was right?

Who told me to walk right and was right?

To whom do I thank for this heavenly bliss?

And is it whom who walks me to the abyss?

Who will take outright my delight and sight?

You live for so long yet know not how to live.

To Drink Of Its Blood A man knows when to put up his quilt on the hanger to let go of what guilt remains as smudges of ink on a clean file.

The print tells what the painting shows.

The cards reveal what the heart knows.

What sits by the Nile to drink of its blood?

Watched under the watch and webbed, with webbed feet, soiled, with soiled feet, tarnished as so, you watch as Time stands, stands still, holds open the door, hands you your papers as you walk out the door, gives goodbye when you only mean to say hi, sends his best regards as he rushes you forward, burning down the mill you spent your whole lifetime building just to watch you closely as you watch it closely get fired from the bottom on up.

The Book of the Dead Hate is a strong word used strongly against those who think themselves strong.

You yourself use it. You hate your friends, all 741 of them.

Why else do you come up each morning to leave their bickering? You go down to greet them, each one of them, one by one till they’ve had their filling of grievances and handshakes.

What else would y’all speak of, converse of if not of the meddling cat?

How do you quell what quails such anger, such hunger?

The Same Pond she says i want power. i do not know what power is. she says i live for power. i do not know what power is. she says death. i do not know what death is. she says silence. i do not know what silence is. i keep pushing my cart to let the donkey get some rest, so soon the donkey and i can both eat and drink from the same cup, the same puddle, the same pond. she says i do not know what love is. i do not know what love is. she says she is in my heart. only blood pumps in my heart, that and other cells i am unfamiliar with. she says she knows me more than i know myself. frankly, she might, but does she know herself? does she know how her lips are a beacon for the cob of the corn, for the frail fables of aesop? does she know the eyes she gives away are worth a penny each? or less than a reel? does she know the bird horns, the car chirps and the sigh of the sun are the same? does she know where my heart lies, and where it tells the truth? i do not know, but i have reason to suspect these suggestions are more than mere infatuations. this soul i carry is all i know. mother earth, what do you know?

Here lies, there tells Here lies a poet, writing half of his words in gold & mud, the other half in dung and a pyre where the stench of burnt flesh still corrodes the once peaceful garden that houses the butterflies and the bees.

There tells of a soul and its ink.

There tells of flash and lightning.

There tells of houses in the woods, some with grandmas and others with wolves.

There tells a tale some will listen, others will erase.

A blank page is not empty, trees say.

o say can you see from the dawns of early april o say can you see we held from the acres of well & able o say can you see how proud from welfare and from stocks from stocks & stocks & stocks o say can you see from way high up how bright the early light that our flag is still breathing and our rockets and their rockets and they glare the bombs waiting we stare

Sunrise Of being store, neighborhood, town, subject, gas. Miles card punched-in frequently. Store away. No breakfast. Only Mother. Breakfast.

Dance. Are too more moment. Slowly cursed.

Winter of heart, roads, beacons. Ocean, sea.

Subject, store breakfast. Cursed sea.

Fleas Bend Jumps My time is not precious.

It does not run preciously.

It is as special as ants in the sea, as numerous as there are birds in space; so yes, my time is mine, indicating its exuberance in being as common as air: Czar chasm.

Time and time again, the dog does not enter the house.

Scared shitless outside and shitful inside, tense is the dog.

What prevalent, benevolent bog-of-an-entity resides in the house to make my dog a soggy apron of piss?

Gotta drag him in like a prisoner, like a sex slave, put him in his prison so the upstairs is clean of urine and feces. Better to keep downstairs safe, so his growls can indicate what my cat plays with when alone & bored of the living.

Keep waking up in the middle of the night, time tricking my sleeping and dreaming, my precious.

Mine, mine, mine, and what about your time?

What’s it spent on? To presume, not being crazy thinking an explanation for the spiritual.

No qua qua qua at the moment, just empty space playing games with time.

Did you find your keys yet? They were hanging by the door like always.

Yesterday, our watches melting paintings in the sun.

Tomorrow, another poem.

What’s for dinner today. Sarcasm.

Lunch was excellent, and so was the dog.

and only the green grass—a chessboard, the living pieces—trees. and which of these the king and queen? this is how you begin.

God and chaos playing a game of chess, each with their own.

God can move any any turn, and chaos can only move its its turn. and chaos is known and inborn to make mistakes of pieces.

God never makes mistakes. evening—pieces of the puzzle being filled, and only three turns left.

Cane Season The croaking drum of the toad’s hum. My eyes rolling over the hills until no more hills to roll over. Seven o’clock, neither day nor night. Heavy fog on the road to town, golden angels below each street lamp. How many more nightmares before reaching a dream a king, a past pharaoh, dreamt?

How many more swims in the lake before we learn how to make something other than a mistake, our toes deep below the sand, necks choked because of holding too much water.

How serendipitous you wrote on someone else’s notebook.

How affectionate you were in the last scene of the play, before the director pulled you away and said cut. And how loud his mouth yelled action between each act. Where are you now now that I have found myself?

I can’t hear you through all the guzzling gas.

Trolley passing by Trolley passing by full even with no occupants.

Catalina CafĂŠ busy with a line of customers going outside, no purchases made in the last hour.

The Highlands under construction, busy with bonfires flickering from restless rooms.

Cicadas jumping from the backs of cicadas.

Convolution of shrubs singing tweets and caws.

Dogs barking at nothing, cats staring at nothing.

Cash used to purchase waste, garbage trucks waiting for the morning.

Backseats with their respective passengers, mirrors saying otherwise.

Hills surrounded by finches picking at breakfast, worms making themselves at home.

Terraces of dirt and more dirt.

Pictures of red eyes in the dark, the camera the only one there.

Children saying their friends are there, adults belligerent, drunk, alone.

Footprints in the sand washed away by the wind.

Sanitary solutions for abandoned hallways, walls covered in mildew, pollen, hands.

The morgue being visited daily.

heartburn half a cow looking at you juices milked the sound of a saw blade cutting the bone marrow hitting the ear drum like nails on a chalk board sliced organs flopping on the floor you walk and was it you who grabbed me up from the sands and dragged me out from the coast line to wheel me in as the winds pushed our persistence further away each passing sail of a wave and when the calvary arrive to shoot off our arms will we still be alive then counting off all seconds as the birds do before they spread feathers across fields and was it not you nor you or even you who had a heart big enough to carry tons of blood the heart of a cow is heaviest to cut empty of blood pump tubes heavy of blood acres in the soil the eyes are the easiest to take just a scoop of ice cream to fill in the holes while the nose rests and breathes

its last breaths before being a platter the cow was once eating grass moping the sidewalk carries burdened cracks and under the shade of a tree the cow mood the buildings block the sky but not the weather report its extremely hotter in the farms says and said the cloud in her moods and when the show ends do we press rewind to rewatch the rematch between my nights against your days a barrier has been made of honeycomb pinecone between us feet lain bare love burning in the snow yet you stand there here waiting for me on the other side of snow

Away The days to nights are just a set of problems left for some to subtract or others to add right on a chalkboard.

God is in your eyes.

Another problem to solve.

God left you for bait.

Another problem to solve.

No God. And a thornbush burns the solution away. Swatted are the flies and the buzzing goodbyes.

With a wet rag, wash away the board of its chalk.

Feel the leaves leaf away the pages of your skin.

What's left is an answer.

Random Consequence the ocean is a river, the river a lake and the lake the sea that sits behind the ocean. what more could a want be from a man but his mother by he? the ocean is a lake, the lake is a river and this river sweeps us on the boat that makes rice. my mother was treated like a fool by us, because? fill the bottle up with nothing and drink. hand the bottle to the next and encourage. where will the sea take us again next? some can eat. what do others do, then, with all the rice on the other side of the boat, then?

to who to who to who who wants a king who wants to be king? who sips his daquiri from his balcony? whether it be romney or mccain, id rather have the ether than any other cause every other wants to be the president with the perfect family. to who is the world blank, the pages dry? to whom shall the color fade, the windows draped? first lady has more windows than the poor and president and the mixed arent rubbed, theyre but shown in graphs as numbers with eliminated outliers and the devil is sleazy and we be but the anthropical throngs on dartboards with no president cause hes dead just like the rest of us. no family is perfect as no brother can survive without killing the other; and to where shall i sail? every land is touched by a boat of the us navy and we got shadows and rituals and secrets on every piece of living soil but the foods getting rotten cause weve got fishes to feed and bones to fill but nothing to see with nothing to grow. to who shall i write this letter? —my inquiry so deep i have nothing else to write but this letter. where will i go when the world gets dark? well, i must spread heed and head to the west. what shall i do when the world spreads the clouds over us from our misdoings and suddenly it all gets stark— where shall i go then? i have nothing to write but a letter so familiar one must quench the soul

once its known; like the tulips in a garden that must prepare for the coming gush of storms, i kept the letter hidden and enflamed and to the trash it went. i wont discuss further of it. i do not want nor do i need to be king. to who shall i sing this song, who must be killed thereafter-ward; must it be the king? i wouldn’t want his blood on me; the smell reeks of old mayonnaise and diarrhea left in a pot in the fridge for too long. and yes, i chant old monk in the streets with gasoline when i speak of me as aged guac but you need to understand the gist of it when i suggest to you as my reader how i write only for you, being submissive and in want of my head in the oven as i might have once done if we switch to that topic of reincarnation and what-so-who: your honor, to where do i lead? who do i kiss and where is this who? when is it and whatever shall i do once that must end as all things must? i feel as though i have written this before with the same jest of a voice ill give to our forefathers once i meet them; their gregorian chant and the reoccuring bells mimic the sounds of the sky and ground in battle and prayer and dance. oh, how do they roar like that! and after, what do they do? is their a mask placed on us so we dont know who is who? and if so, what shall we do! i am pissed off, doused off the poison air i breathed in, contaminated with pests and longmire desks in schools abandoned of love and cared for by the wind. oh, im pissed. ive said shit on the faux crown and damn am i pissed. i dont know what else to do with this but burn the haystacks near your thrones—to this tune i once heard from her hymn. it went like this: when being king, the crown is too heavy for this head, whom the others would find most unpleasurable

if given the details of my past, but why must any be king? id rather bow down to misfortune then let the next king reign and of the kings, all of them ready— for what? the wars are made when theyre wanted, but a king is made of loose fashion so why this? who are the wealthy but the poor at heart? and if the wealthy survive completely then? who will rule the world but roil? the royal planting sour soil and badbad declaring new rule— if i am king and my people start revolting am i to blame? and if the sun is king wont he destroy us as he must? and if e pluribus unum is king amongst the many arent the others unnecessary? is not the world filled with torture? is not our youth burdened by pain and if we are haunted by a thing are we not all the same? and if i become king who will be my peasant? who will protect the children from paperwork? or worse, the fireworks of evolution to no revolution? will the kids be to blame? or will it be on us, our blood the stain? who better to rule the world than no one? what better to fill than emptiness? whom can spake what wont be spoke? i wont bother. i wont.

ode to a feather of eden and when you mentioned your total absolution of any recall of the rattle on the tracks and the bells bells and yells of bells my eyes went faint for the cent of a second im losing it hearing it or am i just awake— seeing your red chevy pass pensacola to 1993 or dodge—or whatever with my mother not knowing i died a while ago by the trash in an alley near i10 although some confuse purgatory for i4 or nothing nothing is how it goes in despondency— leave the creek the speared horned peak follow to a crease a slit in the door the king can open but nay the peasants drawin— and nay the peasants drawin!

sepulcher Death sits in my sink.

Will not go down the drain.

Sat in my chair pondering How soft, slow—subtle the rain Was this evening, Before running out of ink.

Seen from the lake near Waywheder Nd it wailed, nd it wailed, nd it hailed, nd it wailed, nd it hailed ol' sunnie missin’ out from ih’ttall, believe me ain't no wrong fo’passerby t’sing sohm uh’dem seer uh’globes, past lullaby lines, nd just like dat wisps bring light You no believe but it insoul, allsoul each soul shown duh whole show uh’whuh we’ll eventually wa’nuh see wih’tan ability t’freely continue down nd again nd down nd again I know you know me hold whuh lovers call true nd bold nd uhv old folk dat keep duh book cloved well, dee be surprised, fo'mourned lamentin’ tides can sweep few, sweep few Go’on dat road whenevuh wise wit’a fame back slapped on any dat connect dem pahfs a warnin’ fo’you, no uhder else but dat lousy god I call Luce who, noneduhless, still gotta bit more curiosity t’find dem answers we no have questions fo’so mind you, he still make mistake he canno unsew Bright as a beatle’s hull when seven men rode wiht’a skull in empty fields burnt from long yonder t’Waywehder child, plain tales go’nd rot up near your string uh’providence dare I shout duh finale, eyes wanderin’ slickerin’ waitin’ by dem flickerin’ flames t’shadow out duh reflectin’ frown found ihn’evry specter wailin’ a tenor anuhder might bite t’no echo on furder befo’ talons come, late as day be in silence

bird canine a tern on the helm O Bare Grins In Deck with her funny cry Led The Wolf Off Scene saying to the ghost ‘me bid you thither, hell Tender Scare And Frail Winds Dead Drums Blatant With Sweat and the tern could not see in the mist of all that fell What The Wolf Felt From Yonder and the tern yelped 'enemy, you are no different 'from the hunter 'the heart stricken from the hunger And The Wolf Held Some Words To Be Kept In Thought Flames and Rain wipe Stains

December 27th December 27th, 1888 Gauguin, My prayers felt short this morning.

I am torn between the certain existence of some Door that will be opened, and opened last, A thought so dark that it kept me up past the shine of new moon My heart doomed of an external shadow.

But the fields, I say, in Arles, Winged individuals whispering through the leaves.

Even He might be impressed By the newly-wed crows and their flock flying past Breeze high Slow dive Toward endlessness.

Even He might have realized The strokes grow with ever impending weakness.

No matter, for I did Not intend to lecture a mentor.

Ah, the old man, His head Held by his hands.

You ought to remember.

No matter, for you did Not intend to lend a visit anymore.

Why bother.

This sadness will last forever.

in you go Where did the child in you go fading through mists like cupid fair and taught while holding a flower in hand or by ear I cannot fully retell polite and hungry for mysteries far grander than fairy tale I delve on the subject a bit further my footnote mourning stained by coffee in the morning woman in you go smiling through blisters you hid far and dove more for your mother during your early years I would like to say for so long and it felt like seconds when you were here I could only cherish a laugh once or smile twice right after I slip fall to sane write angel in you go flying through whispers to mid sentence with the intent of change I good wholeheartedly speak of folk and song since you others and myself follow no leader grander than my self poet in me go speaking through a medium where one can affiliate with a word phrase or letter I stray a bit away from common ground penned by unordinary strokes of

wisdom with chaos I know where my place is on your endnote of no devil in me go

I want it to rain again Pounds over the window clear-watering my thoughts Flashes booming through linen to floor Cloth as gentle alone as the skin of another Where my eyes reach a portrait faces west and yet my stay here has brought me this before of clash and jest and yet long nights much like this before with a watch that bends and a wash over mends my friend your portrait fell days ago

Cliffhanging a chase, if you will some sort of dog going up against an angel fight for freedom and rebellion that feeling kind of left to the hills tsk, task, talk, toast, took and away with you witch there, princess here, and a ghost everywhere simple yet context complex only we and tea be a remedy flask to glass to last memory but I squint at the task pen a novel of a novel ending involved two single cubicles stuck together empty except on the wall a sign with some random letters and different sized candles light-full able to defect none-sized enemies with no lines depicting their presence anger, pain, and lonely essence coincidence didn’t come annual parade solely made for the children of your town bewildered by any new false enchanted from a red blinding gown white dead skin somewhile manage to smile an ode to the elders and their misadventures merry goes round and finds her bound from the ankles to teeth with blood present my god, the thought swirled long introducing myself to you the task was tsked and toasted on by every other of my emotion-laden quarrels based on slight inherited sorrows choices made since the bible envies of beauty from a beast you will be better off with him, at least the more you climb this troubling cliff toward assumption but then again on the top might be a field of zen

A Liable Severance Whistling through the cracks of burnt lips, I tired for water With no hand to hold thy cup, my rigged eyes started to wonder When will a woman with only a heart show desire to let no man suffer And with the wish of a tear, shouts came from a lovers whisper I am yours, she said, I am for ever Let out a second tear, she said, let out your hunger There it was, in the dreams, an escape from this nightmare tower Hold my hand, she said, hold your written letter But years came with sighs and every month a shiver For every month came the tide, every month without her

a song to know

devil spoke to me midsummer noon upon the glistering of rocks, of june you torture me still? ponds that held more depth than oceans just, in the sense of your appearance you keep me waiting? once in a while with laudable leadership i go yonder, to the heavenly, for worship you walking to know? hold the we so then thee can come with me a fortiori, thus will see what i mean to be you certain of it? in this haze of a list all have become to manifest only ask of us when the time is best, no lest you pray west?

I and the rose I was what I watch, the rose It shows What I wash from blackened hose Folds to hold what fails I know what’s gold But every man takes his place And me, mine Than the rose I watch, it shows There’s nothing more fine

on that road I was walking past the rivers that lead to the olden towns of yonder gold, a trek I know by faith and will, it travelled seven times before: when I was a youngling, shorter than my dah, I had to pick fruit for the fam; then, when I was older, my sis on and went, which led me havin’ t’go back. Pahs wouldn’t know till she was older, making my mah—in a fit of rage—leave with her bags under the roof, lending my time there then again. And, while going back, I saw my dah—in a drunken stage—wobble down the dirt by the seams of the witheredstricken soil; his soul was resentful and relentless, giving me more to stare while the moon tends elsewhere. It didn’t take long for my path to lead me once more on that road, my heart sure of the eyes catching sounds before the hare knew what. A patch of grass was uncovered, the tide coming down; wetlands with bushes were there. My woman, I won’t name, talked a dozen times of leaving for other seasons of weather; let her be, I did, but the walk to her last comforted me still.

Time away saved the memories, placing them somewhere else; amongst the orchards, I suppose, and on my way back is when I noticed a fellow near the water looking through mirrors of glasses; some form of conversation led to our compromise—hail heaven’s hail —titled suit-ly well if you ask it. I've explained of how I’ve grown to enjoy the hike from whither hill to the sky; he would then suggest a bicycle ride and I would applaud his child-like spirit, placing my hand on his shoulder as a brother would. I have yet to see the man since, the four dimples on the ground from his table lost by my tracks.

Poem R by the order of the robin i hereby declare your sermon worthless your piece of sodom hails stronger than syphilis than the swipe of a scythe but you are the younger one your grace caressing the air you thrive in the twitch of a father in the waft of the wind on your hair on the darker stem of your feather and you are the loveliest with those that flock in your nest in the most humble they must be for them to hold and touch thee your eyes are everywhere to those that denigrate your memory your words will have no stray but pickings of sophistry on their faces, for eternity

Weary of your Where ive been at war in four ways. my Akashic told me so: said our souls were to the garish as your thoughts were; said i wrote the villanelle of Empson and Merrill while my ballad was yet to be made; said the erudition you gain is nothing more than YHWH placing his fingers in pie; said what is said will be said to be said of all that we say. what faux pas my records make, my position to make sense of this hard at work. what a gendarme it has begun to represent, telling me again i am wrong when im right. what emaciation the numbered bodhisattvas had to face when working toward work. what else shall i say to convince? how could i ameliorate the old when the young suck blood. how can i throw any distress while you hold on to skulls. how will i ever remember where i kept your fur those nights i abhor. how do you sit still while playing the Devil on that shine of a lonely vinyl. i know i have yet to tell how I have been at war in four ways; i fear i might be polemic in this letter. apologize, i will not, my melismatic undertone enough to bring any in to hear this: we claim our gifts and we bring our differences to the light of sun in judgment from you, your friends, and your enemy; and so i ask in the middle of summer during the rise of painted-on tulips: when we drowned in the swim; when we burned in the rain; when, at late we are pulling apart comprehensively with more parted time; when in day, we continue to run our daily routines to death with no lessons

learned: where were you. my son; if you’re going to kill someone, kill someone, for it is March, and the rabbits hide well, and i please the gentle in man when you await the return of the loon, a fool at heart without your heartfraught run. and we will someday avenge the red signal from our impatience of the fault of sentience. and we will someday replenish your worthiness of pride and glory. and we will someday lend the last of the worst to the best of the last pence. and we will someday find you, with all your promises of love and worry right in front of us, and just with mercy as before too.

to sons gogh went nuts during your beginning; your end would not come, till martin had sought what you would not; your presence was of noir when the world struck its first war; your sohn is bliss, whilst the head bore retorts; and to bed, topf could not, the chamber he is in gone, his endeavor ousted; and for them, i bow, body of tehillim in fields of now; and you are parched, stilled, incinerators to be filled; and we continue to feign, 'hope is a good thing.'

Horns and Hooves i am surprised to learn that he does not reside in the shower with his horns and hooves and his off-putting character. an outline of his figure was drawn, of humidity in the mirror, and god, was i scared after seeing his face. i was told of this before his nod. landlord was wrong, his presence shown more in front of my closet. how deceptive, were it not for my nightmares, he would still let his staring at my sleep devour me. even in the company of someone is he prescient with dissonance. boxes fell & i knew it was him & she will not return. he gradually closes the door with me inside, hoping he will catch me with time. i am sure he keeps on nay-ing, waiting for an accident to come hit me in the dream of another.

Or So And So Librans are insane. I say this wholeheartedly, their rising in balance and Venus. My parents were Taoists, or so they tend to represent, black bird talons gripping and piercing their want.

The night sky is an asylum for those who process in meter/song; every star with its terra, never to send us what we send, or so is how the fallacy goes. I wonder if a genius will explain our paradox.

In body, an odd prefers an even, a simple magnetic attraction; be wary of your opposite, hear-hear, they are of a funnel that swallows what berry of the tree you planted with care last, or so as the battle of rest with worry.

With retrospect, the Devil is an owl and so is Pan. Shall the wisest comic, with luck, find his Carroll to explain what midsentence was already answered. Hath strength, lauded Horn, or so debauched symbolism will the faun teach on filth.

To cajole leads to doubt. From Descartes to Nietzsche, or so the turn of a centaur in a maze of uncertainty, I was ever to be silent in the mind; not to go and assure peasants now of their eventual sublime, but to allow the reign of bureau, of furor.

I plead for furlough from this tyranny, my waist grabbed by those who vex ‘Banzai!’ in flagrante delicto; I must have been a lesbian then, for is it not my cogent complaint that will rile the lice’s biting of many a proletariat’s scalp which lent with it the disappearance of any avant la lettre, or so I thought so.

Empson and Merrill It don’t make sense and it don’t make sense.

I’ll keep on with these words, when I ask why does it go to work in eating to burning, hence most don’t stop to ask me for directions to evince on the loose ends in the cries of younglings to mask it not making sense and it’s not making sense while the dance is interrupted by pseudo-science, a makeshift campaign distraught with a red flask it carries to work in eating to burning, whence yesterday was given foremost and close, since.

I’ll write off the sign that spells in symbols when I bask in the glory of no sense and there’s no sense with men in collars and hoods and there’s no sense in trying during the cremation by the axe of Mol' that goes to eating and burning the fence that separates the feudal landlords from indulgence the church placed in water of holy to waxful tears washed away of sense; a formal absolution of sense is seen, done, and carried with like Sisyphus, innocence no longer allowed without permit, fixations pushing backs down, arms shackled by it that eats and burns the pence falsely presented as the three pieces of Hermes’ quince garden. So what if. Because I can’t convince the prince to task men who see fit where sense does not reside, and the wince gained from this is devoured and enflamed with no rinse.

Meditations on the Angel in my Dreams the tulips were painted red and my father threw a chair at the canvas to rip the head of an artist who drew a fair wingedlike bind passing oer red tulips and white horses that ran the rut from yonder shore to devil door in forces heavier than matter and angel if james wrote the bible we felt then you are certainly ample enough to bribe but you melt the bones holding my heart instead pray continue to fool the fool with a star from the start but deliver me for deals of wool and lay my father to then not be the weather author and well demonstrate how there is no sea to hold my soul from whence it fell.

fiend— but he is my friend and i will not deceive him his teeth clamored to the table his eyes bound to meet a razor so i look to you then to him so the devil knows how i did not deceive him

pull of tide ill stop counting numbers when the devil and death leave my doorstep to let the little ones in us in. must get home first—gotta walk up the stairs to play my guitar right—these strings are cheap with opened legs— window-scratching record voices of telephone calls of yelp and help when too great of a coincidence appears to be a coincidence unsuitable for fishermen whose quiet sailing is matched and lit away by the pool of tied hands and knuckles— lips and muzzles— interruptions and casualties and god knows nothing is in tempus fugit and carpe diem—godot was weary of our where as well— by the pendulum of who were committed— by the den—on the porch.

a waterlogged chest i feel me be a sailor alas me sail in me own raft th calm make it shinier once a storm come wit suit an tailor speak of sittin out i dont listen better an it come slowly wit loud honker keep tellin of me bloody mat sippin th water under bunker me first held up somewhere only her rumblin an shakin waves in combat th response grew louder an louder i yell there werent no dirty spitter th duffles spotless like th abaft avast ye me be in no locker an to moor scallywag ive done wetter th sea be where i sit th caves ayon be lighter yet no give came from th boulder carved me down as shark bait i say th bays much brighter me fall was rough an bitter at th sands th august sun bit on th rocks th boat yonder in th sea me find a key to treasure by th lake me take th dead hat not th booty for a sailor not one gun shinier

there ain’t much sun when she comes w’at are the possibilities? they are endless. w'ere will they lead? they are boundless and when i saw the scrawny old looking old hag made and cooked to look young i should have continually driven away away which i did but then thought shit she might need a ride in those clothes in this wear since it's still winter but when in the heat of the moment the right choice was to go back i got the better image of her walking down the street naked after she said—touch my boob so i know you're not a cop— and i replied—i ain't trying to pick up a hooker—and gave her two dollars by a convenience store in french town which goes to show you—rumination only leads to eyes like ray's.

there are too many humans in this line for the same thing each with their ticket to the same place feet on the pedal at the same pace words in the middle with the same taints traits and talents its all for one end goal plain and buried with a shovel and my hands are buried with it the dirt heavy and moggy while the damned lisp their seats in evil fire i wanna ride this plane myself every airway a transportive getaway only one soul to perish at sea even as the rain pours down more droplets than needed the air is vacant and the water backdrop overflowing her screams heard over radio waves like jupiters low hum more transferable energy left to waste on nuclear rivers but the president has signed to have it cleared up so the dead can walk to their proper burial grounds buses lined up by number from least capable to successful city towers that make babel look like a shack our ships docked because of the storm ahead in the foggy clearing of first morning of the first month with contributions made to great abel few will attempt any sacrifices poseidon is drenched and persephone lights a candle location location vocation my friend pointing at your face you take no harm from this his statement distorted from the common my heads running my mind my hands are blank spotted bottoms talk some are familiar with if from the bronx but im not from the bronx or a ghetto heavy gang plagued flower so whats my statement on the shrub of doves in my backyard or do i have any the privileged have enough trouble under their lawn so whats to say it cant be dug up to give to those still walking

no ones getting the upbringing they need except the blessed ive lost the ability to speak my tongue hung by the prophet he says the moon will leave me i dont want the sun to come up wheres the fun in loving when its said once then done with the gates closed but the lines as long as ever so wheres my mentor promising me a proper seat in the coliseum in a suite like a prince having a king telling me my lifes too sweet where did that devil run off to or did i brake my limit as so a pauper with a tree of the bourgeoisie and a hotline to the nearest axe facility we bet the world and now have too many coins god bless the system and its pyramids

for death and to the creature with no legs who speaketh in the tone of thine auguring wherefore art thou heart tis in the sink i grew in my hand smothered with the child of david doth none repeateth thy name thou sayest nae james said it deliver me from mine enemy i will not agree more why fight the lesser of the battles won for the lion to scurry i shant agree to that yet will for thine impropriety dost thou wont in despotism nae n yae thou will not leave the chasm giveth thine answering my charming remarks wont get better but his cruelty must hows it due to don thy chair i can never tell my brothers and sisters all like me but i can only see whither from over there by eden yet our presence is further from the truth

nae but i wish and hope for your father here in paradise whatever for so i can give a second of thought again gain independence from there is and make my own garden thou lord will not approveth of this what can he do but watch what good is there in knowing with every ever didnt you touch and read it burnt what a coincidental ploy for smoketh thou hast not we but others before us like we but cant ye let the trees breathe cant thy book keeps thy trees shut the trees know more than them books why is there meaning in what thy book shant theres something in everything and i what a disaster eh we know more about thou than thou never will thou lips reek of death thou back slithers on lava what a monster yr brute knives coming for me

yet i must beckon n see to it why crud and rumble in hunt of the tiger what good is there in being a slippery tangent let death be the opponent and stop being a bitch yr loves there what else must ya want where did we go or where did we do well thats for you to find i can only hope for it

Remember me With a capital I, I devour my sleep.

With a capital M, I am Memory.

Inflicted on the wounded. Conflicted on whether I should go to sleep tonight or meet my maker.

Love has a funny way of finding its way in. Death knows our stories. She will meet us in our eternal sleep.

My third eye blinks. My heart beeps.

Beats from the guitars that sing.

Jazz from the wind this morning, speaking melodies unheard of as of yet.

Sing to me in my sleep, answer my questions.

Only yes and no.

Do you forgive me? Do you know me? Do you love me at first sight? Have you seen me lately? Do you play guitar to the moon when the sun is up bickering with the sky?

Do you laugh at me? Take my hand.

Let us walk our differences away.

Several lovely days next to each other sipping tea and drinking coffee.

Several you’s and me’s talking.

Several songs being sang this evening, films being played on the big screen.

Houdini just performed his final act.

Now is the big show. How we wait for the curtains.

Kiss me before curfew, before the Germans show up. Wash my feet of sand from the inescapable desert.

Remember our dance routine.

st peters industrial church theyre always building something in chicago in milwaulkee miami and tallahassee indiana even infrastructure built upon itself but whatever happened to building men you can put any of them in shark infested waters and none of them will drown the shark being the enemy but also the friend whatever happened to helping the man next to you take a block and each of them will walk past each other without the slightest glance or handshake and instead bump as so to have cellphones dropped and cracked and what about traffic without horsepower and gentleman who cant wait for the bystander to cross the street and must make hurry or what of the child who cant skip otherwise his legs will be dipped in the same waters as the men who wont look up and stop to view the view if you didnt hear me then you didnt love me —and the red— from the fire that bled your wood to be nimble to the tumble to the burnings in your avenues without reasoning for the pleasing of taking for the taking o chiraq there is much red in your history and to the black man senate there a man we like to call uncle sam you didnt even visit when Bland got murdered by yr enforcement and our son the sun of suns

jesus is crossed open by the freeway and his brass arms are as stuck to the wall as we are to the ground the alleys littered with none the merrier

Sometimes Sometimes, I need too much.

Sometimes, I do not need enough.

Sometimes, when the rain starts falling, I ask the sky why the rain started at all.

Sometimes, when trees begin to grow outside my porch, I ask the ground in referendum from its many living in reference to the seething and the boiling cauldron, the drowning and pleading river.

The ground only grows some more.

Sometimes, when the earth is cold to the touch, I put my face against its many blades and attempt to warm it up.

Sometimes, when the world burns, I grab a bucket to pour on its surface the many tears I have saved throughout the years.

Only sometimes, though. Sometimes, it is easier to grab a shovel to dig my own grave to fall in, to grab my own heart and throw it across the canal to test my own luck, sometimes.

But only sometimes.

Other times, when the sea is clear of humanity, I wonder where the next drops of rain will fall onto and whether we will be there or not.

Sometimes, you ask me the same thing, asking me away until the moon comes up and we go back to our separate beds.

Sometimes, you ask me to be king.

I am no king (I am no lord) I am just a humble lowly man burning his paperwork.

Sometimes.

in jerusalem 'the monuments of cyprus are well endowed, 'my aphrodite, your earrings of orichalchi 'well-hidden in your bough of satyrs;’ 'if you know how it look, then you see how it be.' the lion and shira mocking the towns of later greek, walking alongside the river seeds of what will be, whereas aphrodite was asked to mount to ride, to which the lion humored on the wetness from rain to which she allowed insistence of her form on our world; their agreement was sincere, ‘the drip, for excellence.' when the two met, the bond was irrevocably sound, a constant harmony of the constant g, precisely, in every cosmic fashion, what transcends our doyen, an attachment in every sense, atonement to proportion an animal of their capacity can reach in a genetic pen; ‘whereto,’ asked the man, ‘to where wills thy maiden,' from thence she combed his hair, as did their ancestors; ‘i wanted to love you for ever, you begged to stay for now.'

Rhetoric Mums are dying, Celosia's too, death is riddled with so many confusions, conditions, commissions played on the radio, tacos made on Tuesday, teacups washed by the minute, my hands have shriveled, by the hour the dishes make their own towers, trash cans grow to islands in a second, we are no good here, we must move to an unlittered continent, an unfiltered, unfettered, uncluttered undertow humans must undertake to let go of growth.

Life Over Vicarious Earth two and a quarter million years ago, i met you. we were apes then, meeting with death once a week; not by appointment, but by the hour, each visit a daily reminder of how close it is to the edge of the cliff. toil through the many fabrications of each species' winding clock. a toll to go pass the toll one has built for oneself. precarious we walk in the fields of our conversations. a deck of credit cards we bring to poker, chess made of hands and fingers. one million years in a day with you. moon, what will you have me do soon? sun, are we done? heaven, how many more days without heaven? worthless, everybody's weightless.

epistle letter o you, had i known had i known id ask you to hide but theres no need to the officer is right here & ready to handcuff th innocent hed say man get uptight & ready cause yr arse is mine & yr ass is headed straight to court whr anyones witness to the media & state but i drift from what i wanted to say hide in the closet yeah thats better for any even in todays standards no im not calling you a baguette or fashion im simply telling you to hide yr self th one that wants to come out & eat someones eye cause no one wants to see a mess in heaven & a delay in hell yes the cops & crops are there but they cant tell whats english from spanish when you say chile & in you go to the meadow of stocks w/ a whimper but the bang left for mother the tsa on top of her before she could even get her call eitheror you did it you crook in the eyes of the govt as if their say wasnt worth less than yr death you crook how havent i written on yr flying back?

bohemian grove why would a man want to be a blade of grass when any growth is stunted by men themselves cut in the weekends and stepped on every damn day after day till the suns done and run out even the redwoods arent safe and id fancy myself a tree amongst leaves an eagles nest nestled thr i wonder whether i should divulgate my thoughts as much as i do now dont want the world to hang me now ya cant grow in the meadow w/o a thumb of blood & salt in the soil okay ill say the damn thing i burned the grove last week but it grew back so we profited for the summer and closed our earnings in the winter while the fiscal quarter arised marginally the amount of proceedings is apprehensive the wait in line impressive the absence decisive there are no more waiting lines to death before the rapture exists im wasting my time being alive obviously the world does not exist to destroy the enemy from w/in that tis a goal to ode death so i drank the poison that tis thr tis what is the goal to end the silence in death but i couldnt poison the poison

death turn signals sure help, but it be twenty x-teen, the turn of the century, so what the hell matters, ya feel me? o what a hell being inside of society! makes ya want burgers in the belly to quench what always makes ya thirsty! who are ye to tell me what cannot be! let me quell my anger. no saint was hungry when revelatory, no demon haunts for money. tell me, young bunny; who took the honey? you talk funny. the forest runs behind me and you have no stir in your fur. beauty. you have beauty and no one cares to see it. terror! horror! the king is angry! the queen is miserable. all the tyranny! the wind is her howling! o the agony! every soul with each serration! no serenity! when the bells from nations to the sky in light of unity? where does an object cost less than a body?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (In the order of publication) 1. Touch Me, Lithely found in the first ISSUU magazine, PassionFruit (A Labour of Love): Down To Earth, made/edited by Ishani Jasmin. https://issuu.com/ishanijasmin/docs/passionfruit_issue _1 2. bohemian grove found in the Fall 2015 Contest Edition of Florida State University’s Kudzu Review, edited by Jessye Scott. https://kuzureviewfsudotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016 /04/2015-fall-finalized.pdf 3. Trolley passing by found in the second zine edition of Suma Lima: Tales from the Everyday Strange, edited by Ruthie Kennedy. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/546186819/sumalima-volume-two-tales-from-the?ref=related-2 4. Capitalism, Yeast in the East and Our Swan Song found in the second volume of l’Aleph Stark: The Poetry Journal, edited by Jeanette Skirvin and Sam Vaseghi. http://l-aleph.com/project/stark-the-poetry-journal/ 5. laconic found in the online Peculiars Magazine, edited by Claire L. Smith. https://peculiarsmagazine.weebly.com/journal/poetryof-the-week-14

Š 2018 Luis Eduardo Utrera Morales All Rights Reserved @leum__ @wildbrokenman