I've been looking for,
not answers
or reasons,
but alignment.
The sort of alignment
that explains the bleeding,
that explains the where froms and
makes the how tos
less magic.
Tracing broken skin
with a tongue and
tasting the sides in and
the buzzard circled numb.
If I make a fist
real hard
it all pulls
together
like a tide without a moon
and I know
every knuckle
sitting beneath
every blood red tear
can speak on its own,
albeit in
Morses lesser known
much more
frustrated code.
original works of parts
Pineapple
There are times
when I wish everything could be
so simple as
naming a thing
for what it is, because there is
a cellar door
beauty to the isness of
being pine and apple fleshed.
when I wish everything could be
so simple as
naming a thing
for what it is, because there is
a cellar door
beauty to the isness of
being pine and apple fleshed.
In Box
I'm not antisocial.
I plan on celebrating
the new millennium
when my unread messages
hit 3001,
since I missed the first one.
I plan on celebrating
the new millennium
when my unread messages
hit 3001,
since I missed the first one.
Empire
Kingdom come
slowly.
The march of dimes
to fountains.
Apartheid, apartheid!
Modernity! Apartheid!
History, vainglorious and
oh so
one night standing
fantasmaglorious.
There were names for these.
Names incisive. Names
provocative in the way
interpolation
could only be.
We were gods. We were
gods with no ambition and
lackadaisical in our votive.
Perhaps soured
in our thinness,
our absence of motive,
but we open up our wrists
to see if we exist and
the question hangs,
is this our empire,
is this the swan
and the lake
and the ugly duckling's take
or is this the profundity,
the profundity of becoming,
the hours and seconds after
some kind of tone deaf detonation
demarcated by camera lens and
cloud burst veins.
The empire,
hard won. Lives lost and for
what?
The empire. The empire.
The culmination of years
spent in gestation and towering,
dreaming of its own
dismemberment as it breaths.
Dreaming of
its own dismemberment
as it seethes. Reconnitered and
in the bed of sight
unrecognized?
So you open up your fist
to see if, in its own flight,
the you unbound,
can still persist.
slowly.
The march of dimes
to fountains.
Apartheid, apartheid!
Modernity! Apartheid!
History, vainglorious and
oh so
one night standing
fantasmaglorious.
There were names for these.
Names incisive. Names
provocative in the way
interpolation
could only be.
We were gods. We were
gods with no ambition and
lackadaisical in our votive.
Perhaps soured
in our thinness,
our absence of motive,
but we open up our wrists
to see if we exist and
the question hangs,
is this our empire,
is this the swan
and the lake
and the ugly duckling's take
or is this the profundity,
the profundity of becoming,
the hours and seconds after
some kind of tone deaf detonation
demarcated by camera lens and
cloud burst veins.
The empire,
hard won. Lives lost and for
what?
The empire. The empire.
The culmination of years
spent in gestation and towering,
dreaming of its own
dismemberment as it breaths.
Dreaming of
its own dismemberment
as it seethes. Reconnitered and
in the bed of sight
unrecognized?
So you open up your fist
to see if, in its own flight,
the you unbound,
can still persist.
Radiator
Do not look at me.
Hold onto the radiator.
Hold onto the radiator.
If you don't hold onto the radiator
it's going to be worse.
Do not look at me.
Do not look at me.
I did not make you do
what it is that you did.
Hold onto the radiator
or you'll make it worse for yourself.
This is going to hurt
me in the way
seeing a light switched on
with abandon
can hurt an eye.
This is going to hurt you
in the way
after images can cling
to retina and spike nerves
years gone. Phantom limbs
of a chimera.
Hold onto the radiator.
Why do you not understand
that stealing is wrong.
Can I not
beat the truth into you?
Can I not
make right in God's eyes
what has gone astray?
Hold onto the radiator.
Hold onto the radiator.
If you don't hold onto the radiator
it's going to be worse.
Do not look at me.
Do not look at me.
I did not make you do
what it is that you did.
Hold onto the radiator
or you'll make it worse for yourself.
This is going to hurt
me in the way
seeing a light switched on
with abandon
can hurt an eye.
This is going to hurt you
in the way
after images can cling
to retina and spike nerves
years gone. Phantom limbs
of a chimera.
Hold onto the radiator.
Why do you not understand
that stealing is wrong.
Can I not
beat the truth into you?
Can I not
make right in God's eyes
what has gone astray?
9/11 Five
The phone calls.
The phone calls.
The phone calls.
The endless maudlin nonsense.
The minutes and hours
of playing outside in the streets
because school was cancelled.
The running out of things to do
to keep me outdoors and away
from the phone calls of
people I never met,
the New York relatives who
did not know me,
but found it important to talk to me
before they nearly die again.
The days that followed
were a puppet show,
everyone on strings
and making up for years estranged.
The phone calls.
The phone calls.
The endless maudlin nonsense.
The minutes and hours
of playing outside in the streets
because school was cancelled.
The running out of things to do
to keep me outdoors and away
from the phone calls of
people I never met,
the New York relatives who
did not know me,
but found it important to talk to me
before they nearly die again.
The days that followed
were a puppet show,
everyone on strings
and making up for years estranged.
9/11 Four
The first time
I fired a gun
I laughed uncontrollably.
The sensation was
the most fantastic
instance of nerve feedback
I experienced
to that date.
I remembered,
index finger tightening,
metal flinching in time
to my hard
dick
the sickening foreplay of
the enlistment process
that left me blue balled and
warming benches in the rank
and file.
Bjork told me once
there was more to life than this.
More to life than the grind.
I would like to believe
that taking lives
was a thing destined to be
my own
as the brass came
catta crak smak
against the gun range
plastic stall dividers.
Divide the population of the states,
granted, able bodied males
of appropriate age
into the task force required
to wipe the threat against
from the Earth's face
and loose them.
I was not born
ready,
but readiness
can be learned.
I fired a gun
I laughed uncontrollably.
The sensation was
the most fantastic
instance of nerve feedback
I experienced
to that date.
I remembered,
index finger tightening,
metal flinching in time
to my hard
dick
the sickening foreplay of
the enlistment process
that left me blue balled and
warming benches in the rank
and file.
Bjork told me once
there was more to life than this.
More to life than the grind.
I would like to believe
that taking lives
was a thing destined to be
my own
as the brass came
catta crak smak
against the gun range
plastic stall dividers.
Divide the population of the states,
granted, able bodied males
of appropriate age
into the task force required
to wipe the threat against
from the Earth's face
and loose them.
I was not born
ready,
but readiness
can be learned.
9/11 Three
"No guts
no glory
no balls,
whatever you want to call it..."
I know why
I am still here
instead of fighting overseas.
That my mind ceases. That I see
what is not real and that
what is not real is reel to me.
That photographs and memories
dance new behind my eyes and
the demons of the night
walk clear in daylight.
That I cannot be trusted,
weapon in hand,
to point the muzzle at the understood
enemy.
That, historically, this country
has not been kind to me
or my kind and "only time will tell"
is a piss collection of words
in terms of the granted.
That self destruction is
at its best a course without,
like a shaped charge, and
the votive course of flame and smoke
is at it's end a simple promise
from a pathological
dreamer.
That heaven sent directives
are as useful as a shoe
to the foot of a man without a soul
and the concept
in a universe so large
as ours
that one ant should defeat another
is valuable, is foreign
to me.
That I failed metrics
beyond physical requirements and
that there are minds more capable
than my own, more adept,
at the art of slaying
reduced to machine efficiency.
That I have been rejected
for a lack of mental capability,
though my soul bleeds only for
faith
in the cleansing power of
violent retribution.
That I have guts,
more guts in my frame than
twenty men built the same.
That I can tolerate pain,
more pain than twenty
child full women
and built the same.
That my motives are not
vain glorious and still able
to turn twenty purple hearts
had I the limbs to take away.
I know why I am still here.
A stratification of stupidity.
An eye on "there is you,
but first there is me."
A hedging. A thoroughly computed
hedging. Because I am worth more
dead than alive
in terms of protected investments.
I am worth more here than there
in terms of keeping an eye on
the internally defined margins.
Because I am worth more,
more valuable breathing and
seething, contained, controlled,
leashed to a yard post and always
within arms reach,
I am not there
doing what I have been,
without asking and perhaps
without intent,
groomed to do.
no glory
no balls,
whatever you want to call it..."
I know why
I am still here
instead of fighting overseas.
That my mind ceases. That I see
what is not real and that
what is not real is reel to me.
That photographs and memories
dance new behind my eyes and
the demons of the night
walk clear in daylight.
That I cannot be trusted,
weapon in hand,
to point the muzzle at the understood
enemy.
That, historically, this country
has not been kind to me
or my kind and "only time will tell"
is a piss collection of words
in terms of the granted.
That self destruction is
at its best a course without,
like a shaped charge, and
the votive course of flame and smoke
is at it's end a simple promise
from a pathological
dreamer.
That heaven sent directives
are as useful as a shoe
to the foot of a man without a soul
and the concept
in a universe so large
as ours
that one ant should defeat another
is valuable, is foreign
to me.
That I failed metrics
beyond physical requirements and
that there are minds more capable
than my own, more adept,
at the art of slaying
reduced to machine efficiency.
That I have been rejected
for a lack of mental capability,
though my soul bleeds only for
faith
in the cleansing power of
violent retribution.
That I have guts,
more guts in my frame than
twenty men built the same.
That I can tolerate pain,
more pain than twenty
child full women
and built the same.
That my motives are not
vain glorious and still able
to turn twenty purple hearts
had I the limbs to take away.
I know why I am still here.
A stratification of stupidity.
An eye on "there is you,
but first there is me."
A hedging. A thoroughly computed
hedging. Because I am worth more
dead than alive
in terms of protected investments.
I am worth more here than there
in terms of keeping an eye on
the internally defined margins.
Because I am worth more,
more valuable breathing and
seething, contained, controlled,
leashed to a yard post and always
within arms reach,
I am not there
doing what I have been,
without asking and perhaps
without intent,
groomed to do.
9/11 Two
The sound of it is small
minded. Exceptionally
self centered, but
it is my war. Inherited
from the things I
cherished when I was small.
Things I joyed in
from then until now that
other people took
wrong.
Why did you not
let me go. Why did you
not let me pay for
the things I was given
year after year, oblivious
to their costs?
My credit score?
Are we really so distant
from cause and effect
to say something trivial
as a manufactured number
should keep a body
from answering
the bell when high water
hell comes knocking?
Let me go. Please,
let me go. If there is
anyone worth more
dead than alive
it is me and I already
have nothing to lose and
everything to gain,
everything I have ever wanted
in destruction. Please,
let me go. I have so much
hate in my heart
to drown
myself
and everyone around me
so put me in their ranks,
let me convert them
into collateral casualties
as I burn...
Why will you
not let me go?
minded. Exceptionally
self centered, but
it is my war. Inherited
from the things I
cherished when I was small.
Things I joyed in
from then until now that
other people took
wrong.
Why did you not
let me go. Why did you
not let me pay for
the things I was given
year after year, oblivious
to their costs?
My credit score?
Are we really so distant
from cause and effect
to say something trivial
as a manufactured number
should keep a body
from answering
the bell when high water
hell comes knocking?
Let me go. Please,
let me go. If there is
anyone worth more
dead than alive
it is me and I already
have nothing to lose and
everything to gain,
everything I have ever wanted
in destruction. Please,
let me go. I have so much
hate in my heart
to drown
myself
and everyone around me
so put me in their ranks,
let me convert them
into collateral casualties
as I burn...
Why will you
not let me go?
9/11 One
Those that would have us remember
the act of terrorism most notable
often begin by asking where we were
when it all went down.
I was in school. High school,
in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The televisions that we were
not allowed to watch
were turned on and class,
I cannot remember which,
was cut short,
but not before
the public address announcements
asking for student A
asking for student B
asking for students C through H
became so numerous
there was no way
to carry on instruction.
I kept thinking
they were lucky
to get out early
until the televisions were turned on and
I understood why they were leaving.
I put my headphones on and powered up
my disc-man with electronic skip protection
and listened to Mono's "Penguin Freud".
She sang to me
about how people try to see
through other's worlds and sang of its
fruitlessness because, in the knowledge of
the peering, it can all be made to seem fine.
I got out of my plastic chair and
sat under my desk, like the nuclear
war and tornado drills taught me,
years removed,
from elementary school on Staten Island,
like instinct taught me,
months ahead,
from the sniper and his father and
the agonizing days standing exposed at bus stops
until they were caught.
I waited
foolishly
for my name to be called.
That was when the thing was cemented
in my mind. No one is coming to get you.
No one is going to save you. You are
not worth a single day of lost pay
to your own flesh and blood, and I resolved
to never rely on a savior again.
The day was a day of hardening and when
I am implored to remember
that is what I remember
most clearly.
the act of terrorism most notable
often begin by asking where we were
when it all went down.
I was in school. High school,
in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The televisions that we were
not allowed to watch
were turned on and class,
I cannot remember which,
was cut short,
but not before
the public address announcements
asking for student A
asking for student B
asking for students C through H
became so numerous
there was no way
to carry on instruction.
I kept thinking
they were lucky
to get out early
until the televisions were turned on and
I understood why they were leaving.
I put my headphones on and powered up
my disc-man with electronic skip protection
and listened to Mono's "Penguin Freud".
She sang to me
about how people try to see
through other's worlds and sang of its
fruitlessness because, in the knowledge of
the peering, it can all be made to seem fine.
I got out of my plastic chair and
sat under my desk, like the nuclear
war and tornado drills taught me,
years removed,
from elementary school on Staten Island,
like instinct taught me,
months ahead,
from the sniper and his father and
the agonizing days standing exposed at bus stops
until they were caught.
I waited
foolishly
for my name to be called.
That was when the thing was cemented
in my mind. No one is coming to get you.
No one is going to save you. You are
not worth a single day of lost pay
to your own flesh and blood, and I resolved
to never rely on a savior again.
The day was a day of hardening and when
I am implored to remember
that is what I remember
most clearly.
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