Oh Quitter

Easy to sound
away tolls of loss,
flesh and soul,
to causes dear
with comforts all around
the storm battered
bluffs below the
jagged cliff's edge
scaled to a clap on the back
and a smile;
no more, no less.

Easy to shout
into sea frothed winds
the sacrifices
willing to blow
to reach the shores
across that deep
green black hungry chasm
with a friend beside
who knows
you cannot swim.

Easy to cry
until eyes bleed and teeth
crack clenched
over joining hells in which
so many have died
when your address
is not and
never was
on the invitation list.

Where was the passion,
the fly or fall dead trying,
the bluster and belly fire
when the time came to pass
to make up your mind
and you wilted and turned away?
Will it be there,
this bloodied sword struck to lightning charged air,
when the time comes to choose again?
Will this violent defense of life
vanish overnight or, easier, remain
silent and blind
until its moment, its chance, evaporates?

Double Blind

The most sensitive tend to be
the chin outs guts sleaved two sawed-offs for hands,
named Dance and Whitney,
folk.

Confidence never rides quietly.
Silence is thunderous.

A screaming argument in the middle of the street
while the moon mediates with its hand on its chin:
"state your case."

Paranoia, purranoya, don't you know me by now?
Lived through and with interpretations of happened.
When it shows up in a television show
or a movie or a song or anything
once removed

digestible.

When it shows up in a human damaged clearly,
off what is considered normal for reasons easy,

endearing.

The oft used trap and trick doors and veiled paper bags
inside of paper bags to make what is on a mind passable
is not my gas and to reclaim that fuel would be nice
to warm palms against a fire that is not hackneyed
thirteen ways to hell (I'm pretty sure, check the bus schedule).

Honest and top of the morning.  Always confuzzled. 
Shear a nose to save the face; I don't have the stomach for surgery.
Halloween comes once a year.

In the Superman movie with Christopher Reeve... Zod and his crew should be
approaching Neptunes orbit by now, assuming that weird glass had the same velocity
back then.  I have not run the numbers.  I am fairly sure
they are still in Sol's neighborhood, farting around
and playing their 3000th game of cards.

Twenty years from now
I will not understand
how a body can judge itself harshly enough to see
every piece of information incoming as a judgement on its is.
Then again

I am not they.

Can you play
dice games in
zero gravity?

Rearing

Having a bad word to say
about a two-year-old
does not mean
nutrition facts
are all that I see when
it laughs in my face
after I've growled
"for the last time"
the first time
and the clock hasn't gone
beyond eight.

Lens

I haven't been able to remove myself from my work.
Haw haw.  Is that how people laugh these days?  I
tend to cackle still.  I'm not sure when that started.
It is an abrasive laughter, to be sure.  A sort of demonstrative,
so to speak.
Thinking backward through the years, it is organic.
Has it use?  No.  Absolutely no.  Formed (shall we
dive) in the crucible of gifting courtesies to fit in.
There did cum a time to change because gray areas
had to be clarified.  A courtesy laugh was a curtsy.
A belly laugh was a howl.  My father made jokes.
Cheap jokes.
He had a few dozen recycled ones and a few
that were spurred by the moment of our conversation.
If I had a nickel, I would be fifty dollars richer.
I would destroy him in a battle of construction.     

Easily.

I haven't been able to remove myself from my work.

The remove has not been writer's block

or any myths like it.  Effort to effect

change is pain filled.  I miss flow.

I continue to tell myself, while

dying and hoping for a chance

to pull a trigger with no

repercussions, we will

get back to it.

Patience with

yourself

is key.

Lover's Spree

Sniffles.
Sniffles.
Addicts, we.
Six years older.
"So that's okay?"
I'm pretty sure it is.
The constructs be as they
Heart torn out and shown to me.
Cadence and glory and don't you dare
tell me what I needs.  "Can I be with you?"
A fresh razor is always fresh.  Tucked penis.
Remember the day I picked up a body
while it cried on a stoop five blocks
away from where it was supposed
to be and I shouted into a phone?
Circle the block and gasoline.
Fury and smoke and petty.
A show for the students
going to school in the
afternoon in Spring.
Wanting is flaw.
I love your's.
Do you
love my
own?

Fight Songs

Tony's got a new pair of socks
don't ya know I'm from
the North way out way back
deer do not stack
in piles to be burned though I do enjoy the scent of burning.  Can I come back to collect the bones.  It feels like to hold the scorched ivory against palm when it's still warm and imagine being right up close against the bone when it splits against the force of the brain expanding, cooked and smattering, splitting and greasy, like a gecko slithering between cracks unhinging, the skull well greased and...

Tome.

To make a breaking wave and shaking in its haze and quaking, jog.  Just.

What is just.  Describe yourself in twenty thousand words and just.

The toast did not go over well.  At least the toaster worked.  Pretty well as far as sound goes.   I have not heard the ghost screaming through the fabric of time and space and I have run the numbers and it will be at least twenty two years.  Before anyone will have a solid answer after you are dead and gone.  There will be plenty of time to wonder.  About why we are here is a delicious symptom of too much.  Could be waking and realizing you are. How

Vomit.

Vomit.

Flett''s got a new pair of socks.
Don't ya know!
I'm from!

The North way!

Out back-
If you shout,
I've heard,
the trunks of the trees atop Skinner's peak
will howl back.

The Scrapyard In July

One mile above the sea floor
and four miles beneath the waves
and feathered sunlight
and shadows streaking between
innumerable clouds
silt drifts
snow.
Leaves tilt
in the wind and pollen
gifts fits of sneeze, gripping
a steering wheel while sweat falls.
On the scale for the dozenth time,
windows down while music blares,
how much is the metal worth?

The trees are shedding again.

Beach ball sized seeds
in the breeze come inside
from the driver window down and out
through the passenger.

75 yards ahead
a toy caterpillar armored beast
piles engine blocks together,
the scent of their collective grease
thick as sunlight in the air.

Do not worry, baby.  I will not
let it eat you.

Green light to drive to the pit
where appliances go to die.

Have We Met

You have a bone collection!  I have one too.
Run a nail underneath each opalescent scale
above your blades and muscle, hard enough
to snatch a chuckle burbled the way
birds do at night before the clocks are set back.


I miss you.


You have a paper collection!  I have one too.
Writhe upward from a squat the way snakes do,
venomous, dorsal tines sparking
the way metal is wont and ripped,
turned toward rock and sand.


I miss you.


You have a tool collection!  I have one too.
Bridge nosed close; backward petaled
eyebrows feathering in hymns,
your charred skin and scorched hair stench
mingled with my own.


I miss you.

Summer Swig

The water bottle
still capped
on the countertop
beside where a wallet laid.
Keys retrieved and pocketed.
A yellow miniature duffle
once laid on the rug below;
a mess of oil splotched wrenches,
drivers, machine odored rags, and
electrical odds inside.
A bead of ice cold condensation
rolls down its shimmering body
to pool at counter's edge.
Each droplet begs for
the kiss of human lips
on their way down.
Pops and a sudden hiss
from the bottle mouth:
impatience!  "Drink me"
the ice inside demands.
Too late remembered.
Too far at work.
Warm as the day is long
by the time
home is gained once more.
Water bottle
poured and capped fresh
returned to tomorrow's
freezer door.

Four Cawing Doves

Three dead ends.
Two.
One machine to travel in.
How dare you damage it
willfully.
Save yourself.
Spreading brush fires;
save yourself.
Why would you seek to harm me?
I have done nothing you know.
When you break down.
When you die.
I will not help you,
and the sun will rise tomorrow. 

Patricide

A funny way
to think about
how water in the air
catching and bending light
when the sun rises over the hills,
500 miles and more away,
some light spilling
across the Allegheny's ripples,
is that it is one more day
and
one more day forgiven.

Jack

Shouting into the void,
pitched coins tumble down
and down to ricochet clink
along tar slick stone walls
and their gristled black lichen,
glimmering at water's slip.
Plink.
The pleasantry of candle light on
Friday.  A quarter that would
otherwise feed
a cigarette machine & jukebox
tumbles, a lighthouse lamp
too far and too night to warm.
Plink.
Listen and hear the algae
creep into the well stone's seams.
Eyes close and open
to the land of Neversleep.
Beyond the ripples
along the well's wet face.
Plink.
Come play with me.
Come play with me.
The Shelty, fourteen years deceased
tugs at fingertips and snuffles a palm.
He will understand in time.
Everything sleeps.
Plink.

Motivated

"Get up when you wake up!"
No.
"Alright, I have got nothing."
Sleep more?
"I am not tired."
We can get up if you want.
"Really?"
Yes, it helps if you do not
come in my room hollering
about seizing days.
There are hundreds of them.
It is okay if a few dozens
get away.

Winter Blind

By lamp, skin prickling in the air that cannot be warmer than 45 degrees, blow cupped palms warm.  Rub the oiled rag against the scratches in the helmet's visor gripped between knees where the holograms fold and scatter unreadable starburst.  This Summer, replace the whole damn thing.  Scratches fill and smooth, no cracks.  

Stand.  Joints protest.  Double over and stretch for cramps have no place in a day's work.  Nerves strain to return anything more than sub-zero tongues of flame along body side and vertebrae.  Caffeine pills and a cigarette lights, turning over twenty pound batteries wrapped and wrapped again in sun scorched black & orange insulation tape.  A main and a spare.

Torn and patched gloves, steel sewn caps on their knuckles, pocks and divots glint winked time.  Cuffs and seals, rubber beginning to harden and give, teeth of zippers blunt and hitch like they never did when they were arctic white, not gray.  Lights pass tests and relays too.  Switch checks and boards.  Screws and panels fix tight.

Drink breakfast slowly.  Vitals webbing harness.  Sleeved underwear and pressure suit.  Heat harness unplugged and donned.  65 degrees is the tropics this time of year.  The commercial featured a talking tree frog.  Radio check produces the necessary channels.  The volume sequencer functions just.  Rub eyelids still heavy, still cold, still not ready.  The recycled air headaches inside the suit await beyond the airlock in Winter's hard light, teeth pop as they grate: "let's go."

Asleep In Your Armpit

The tart and ash toned
bubbles of snores
pop quietly stream side
eyes fallen to breath's
days crumpled in leaves
fingered blades
of firebreathing deer
clipped clover tips
droplets of dew sweat
inhaled and suffocate
lips pressed
to salt lick skin.
The third evening slips away.

Cats

I have broken all of your taco shells.
They smelled delicious.  I think.
Or was that the taco meat grease
from the fingertip you used
to close the container?
They did not scatter,
the lid remained fixed.
You really should do better
at washing your hands regularly.
I would say "you're welcome",
but we both know you are not going to thank me,
you ungrateful piss,
and will probably feed them to
those feathered flying mice
outside my window.

Smoker 61

Licked fingertips touched to engine block.

"Yep, that's 10W-30.  When is the last time
you changed your oil?"

About 4,388 miles.

"We'll throw one in.  An extra thirty sound good?"

A hex on all of your houses!

"Fifteen is fine.  You can pick it up next Monday.
No one will be in the shop 'til then." 

Okay.  Okay.  I will see you then.

"I don't have a lighter."

Right.  Yes.  Can't smoke in here. 
Monday!  I will call.

Start Up Chime

Immolate.

Call and response to knuckles and jaw bone.
Test focus.  Ring.  Bawl.

Each link along the armor suited
bundle
from thighs to base of skull.  Ring.  Howl.

Turn and pull flexors tied from
hip fronts to arm pits.
Ring.  Gnaw

joints within reach of lips and teeth.
Feel the response call.

Knit eyebrows and
wiggle thumbs.  Remember pinkey toes.

Pull and push
imaginary obstacles.

Thrush and trill the part of tongue
that doesn't get used very much.

Remember they're there.
Adrenaline is a thing to be used sparingly.
Remember its there too.

Press on
the two bones that make up the links to your paws.
They're there too.

When the song is complete
each part makes up the beginnings of an end.

Where it is - can not be known.

Hit

First meetings and I want to know everything
that makes you different.
Worry war
for all four
all fall down.

Stumped and charmed with
your "I know your confusedish"
wry
smile.
Can I compose an excuse to meet with your
guillotine?

Planets and stars and
large spaces of curtains of gases
and claws and was that a wink
from beneath eyebrows
or a glint
of a guillotine?



A wash and do not be upset.
Lives to live.
Be let in.
Walk across. 
The only blade is the one inside of your head.

Valentines Day

After Elastica's "Miami Nice"

I want to make you run.
I am.
Powered by a sun,
a system,
cased in ice.
Caged for reason.  Caught in perpetual collision.
Run run run.
Run run run.
Run run run.

Tooth

Fear of the evening darkness
slips aside as easily as my zipper
to tuck the pack into the jacket
underneath my coat.
Twelve seconds. Returned.
Smoking again.  Drags between
gnawed fingernails on the right hand,
my glove still wedged beneath
my left armpit. 
Dabbing out the cigarette's embers,
afraid of the dark.  The seams breathe.
Coughed spots of blood again.
Twenty-three seconds.  There is time.
We can make it.  If we leave now.
Sun will be up in eight and a half hours.
"Be afraid or fearless,"
the seams breathe and wrinkle
like waterlogged clotted scabs,
"the sun will set again
you pretty, lonely, thing.
Please do get your rest in the morning."
Get there.  We'll be fine.
Cigarette ember burns both knuckles.
If we leave now, we can make it.

Obelisk

Learning what it is to really.
Skin eytn scdsa.
You're not supposed to say that.
Expletive enhanced.
Chunker. Do you remeember?

The way your father had conversations with you
with television sound bites?

Slaughter house six.  Cult.
Joys. 

Why can I not have a tooth collection?
I don't want papa to be proud of me.

I would like to gift him one of my teeth.
Be reasonable.

Don't ualrlr lwek  dl  dl;;lk;d dio9090
dopioodopwan,m.d,. d.n,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.m,.d,ddddddddd

p ;sdlka I suppose
we could skin them.  I don't know how to dry pelts. Yet.

Four years from now
to learn.







Reasonable
scope.








Afterward.
One finger to a year.
Make it count.

Laughter Echo Aboard the Calburnk

"Bwa HaHa!"  The echos bounce
against portholes and the doors.

Vacuum outside and rations in,
click clank, our boots on floors again.

Inside the real world our rations do
exactly as they're told.

Clockwork precision is never a given
especially when there may be a grassy knoll.

Hit the highs and hit the lows,
and always take the thirteenth door.

Get the bottom or get to the top,
business always boils down to more.

Skirt it or orbit, clothed or war fit;
visit and crack teeth on the core.

Garbage.

Dry heave.

Gain your bearing.

Erect nipples.   Chewed fingernails.

I am worried
I'll hear about your funeral
in a comment somewhere and
hate your family
for the rest of time.