You Are More Than a Map

"...they don't love you like I love you........."

and

vomit.  Violently.  Projectile it into
an upturned hat.

You are old.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Stop it from happening again.  Do you see.

Vomit violently again.  Spill
is that a tooth sized piece of carrot

over the side.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Stop it from happening again.  Do you see.

Vengeance.  Vengeance!  You were small.  You grew.
Vomit and do not miss the mitt.

Down the left pectoral.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Bang.  Head against ceramic.  That cannot possibly
work.  Where is my hat?  Where is my hat!

Slick hands and magic tricks.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Reverberations.  Time.  Space.  Vomit
like your vertebrae depend on it.

These are not your friends.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

EVACUATE!  EVACUATE!
PLEASE!

You've seen what they're doing to their kids.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THEM!
THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THEM!

Erase her.  Erasing her will.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job. 

I'll see you soon.  It is happening again.  Nine years
from now.  It will happen again to the person I love.

Kill her.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

I will be suspect and examined.  There is no way and
THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THE KIDS!

I will. 

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Leave her?  Leave me!  There is a way.
Create.  Show the way.

She will die.  As will her friends.

It is happening again.  You

have

one

job.

Focus.

Outside My Window

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report 
to see white whorls of wind, crystalline tap, by the wide angle pane. 

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report 
to see knots of lightning and hear the miles high rap of hail
as the gutters collect ice and leaves whimper underneath night's blanket.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see the deep orange shine of afternoon sun, reflected from the passerby
along highway lanes close enough to whisper wet tired cement.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see black winged blots of birds above each chimney across the street.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see skins evening aspiration crystallized along the wide angle's edges,
pain pricking my forced heat chapped and smiling lips.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see formations of geese crossing amber lit contrails
frozen in a sky clear and weighty, an entire day's fistful, bubble chambered.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Crisp and shining gloss printed with trees as green as the river

water, glistening easy wave caps, a rod and reel and bicycle.  

"Wish you were here!"

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d.

Once a Day

Easy does it
easy go.

"Easy goes."

///One each day.

"Easy floes."

They told me that the creative writing program
at Carnegie Mellon University was not designed
to accommodate science fiction and was designed
to accommodate short form and long form real life
even though they flunked me through several classes
for having real life problems.

You've been warned.

Three absences and you have nothing to add

to the world.

You've been warned, I guess.  No one warned me
about the entire sci-fi thing,
but you would think
they would have a course
in short form fiction
taught by someone
who could think
through the gobbly gook
of technology and see the imagination
instead of being hung up on the difference between
millimeters and the design atop a
gourmet cup of coffee that is gooky in itself.

Anways.

Sixty thousand dollars latter.  I still dream about
interstellar cafes and heart break with nowhere to place it.
Wreckages of heartbreak and stories to tell and nowhere.
Professors that left me and trying to connect with them
and nowhere.
Linkages to the past and development and nowhere.
Growth and people I should be able to connect with
and nowhere.
Right where I started.  As if it never existed.  And Nowhere.

Adrift in space in the place where I left it.

Except.

If I wanted, I could track them down and kill them.

I have worked very hard on my skills.

I learned something while I was denied audience.

I worked very hard on my lethality.  Conflating time and
space.  If you refuse to speak to me, I will make time for
an audience.  I grew.  I grew in the vacuum of space to
become something of a nothing.  A shadow.  A worry.

You do not know me yet.  I cannot tell you how many
times.  Well, accepting a double ew was a black spot,
wasn't it?  A something to do.  I still would like to see
a jar with your teeth and the odor of the lounge stale coffee
still on them when the lid is unscrewed.

You have no idea what you did to me
to prove a point and preserve some sort of purity
in that class.  What was the worst you thought would happen?

You have no idea.  You have not the slightest inkling.






That is what makes me laugh to this day

Carnegie Mellon....  Carnegie....

I can find your names....  "he won't"  ....  a bad student....
pathetic....... automatic fail..... we can't........ the standard....

Every day I think about it, I am sickened.  To light fire
to the entire wing
would be a

joy.

Daylight and Large Weapons

Bombing through the Highland Park bridge at speeds
inappropriate for braking while rain dimples the river
darkening below and allowing the belch of exhaust
to sing a death for me

Brake.

Windshield wipers clap quietly while music wrestles
with the burble and shake.  Old truck bluer blues than
river water.  Garbled tail lights wink, bumper smooches
greetings and forgotten names

Go.

Sunset obscured by clouds racing northeast  The east,
the east, the east!  Marry Poppin's magic bag is about
the size of a full truck bed, at least.  Maybe more
maybe less.  They do both fly

Brake.

Turning slowly, turning faster, lazy lazy lazy.  A hop,
skip, and a few turns away.  Home.  Work.  Home.  Work.
Off to see the hillfolk to organize their lives.  Home to
see the kinfolk to reprioritize.

Mary Poppins

drove a truck;

her umbrella flight

was lies.

Smoker 66

Hands touch shoulders and weight leans in
and he moved.
Hands touch shoulders and weight leans in
and I moved.
Nose to nose
glasses reflected in my eyes.
Nose to nose
eyes reflected in his glasses.
Ready to kill
if it is now
if today is the day
if this is how the movie ends
if this is the final show down.

Friends.  Shake.  Apologize for

I can't remember what I said

or why I attacked him
with sledgehammer words
he deflected.

The sword artist of verbal combat, swinging drunk.

Shame, tapped out a breath at a time,
regretting touching a man I've insisted on hugging because
handshakes are cheap and touching breast bones
and allowing someone to come so near
to force threat down their throat
like a rolled up magazine
is not the way
to approach
conflict.

Tapping time out
a breath a time
from the end of a
cigarette.  Wondering
what our next conversation will be (if there is one),
remembering the death threats
through eyes different and
the same,
the ashtray

has nothing for me
beyond the passage
of time and its
silly healing.
Apologies, genuine
have more legs.
Sobriety too.  Email
sent.  Wait for a reply
that may or may not
ping.

The Warrior's Code

My contract is my word and 

my word is a contract. 

Bonded and seamed. 

Money and ilk

 is nothing to me. 

My word is my bond and 

my bond is my word. 

As far as it goes, I go. 

As far as I go, it goes. 

The only currency.

Airlock

"I will find you.
I will find-"

Tear drops cling to eyelashes
like molten glass.

Never.  Again.

Adrift.





How far can you see
with the nearest star fourteen light years out?







What is the battery life of helmet lamps
in a model JXL7858?





Urine. 

Urine.







Screaming urine.







Come with me.
"Where to?"
Outer space.  It'll be fun.

The Screed

To tamper with one's seal
is acceptable.
Tamper being
anything short of its erasure, up to and including all modifications
that own itself.
To tamper with another's seal
by physical or mental pressure
against the bearer's will
is not
and punishable
by erasure of the offender's seal
in absolute and for all times
and dimensions
followed by
one life sentence
served knowing
their body
is a corpse
and only
with all tools removed
to create a new seal
&
should their ability
cross boundaries of creation,
the summary removal of all
appendages, senses, and functions
that would gift them
the privilege
to do so.

Trash

Love.  That loaded word.  The sound a revolver makes.  A revolving door's  sweeps that push candy wrappers out and keep the conditioned air in.  The sound double dutch makes when the rope scrapes the ground and sneakers bite against cement to rubber sole, beating the time to jump in.  The rattle rattle of empty chamber flow and the carousel clicking toward and away from the tunnel with a primer.  A revolver.  Sitting on sun beaten iron tracks with a flattened penny, warm, in a palm and the bristle breeze breaking the silence the way a freight line might from one mile beyond the bend an eye can see.  The sound a revolver makes.  Orange moon, low and full, near the eastward hills reflected on parking lot windshields yesterday a year ago.  Squawking door hinges unfixed.  Doors scarred further, collecting efforts.  Love that loaded word.  The sound a revolver makes, heavier.  The same windshields.  The same orange moon.  It is not a breeze.  The penny is scorching hot not because of the sun.  It is a carousel.  The chambers are not empty.  The sound of shoes are running feet between ropes tiring.  The air is the same.  Sweeping cigarette butts onto the sidewalk and into the lobby.  It will be jammed by a body.  That loaded word.  Love.

Smoker 65

Lost potential is a sad thing.
A poor tackle is worse.
Bad form!
The objective being
to ground,
a tackle that causes injury
should be outlawed.
Stop.

"What do you want?"
"Sacrifice."
"Of?"

Lost potential is a sad thing.
A poor tackle is worse.
Poor form!
The objective, poor,
being ground.
The tackle causes injury
and births outlaws.
Stop.

"What do you want?"
"Sacrifice."
"Of?"

Lost potential is a bad thing.
A bad tackle is course.
Casked form!
The objective, encased
in a glass.
The tackle framed.
"No trespassing" posted, law dog.
Stop.

"What do you want?"
"To bleed."

Smoker 64

So now there is a gadget.

The gadget makes cigarettes.

Not really.

Buy tubes, Stocking stuffer.

Quit by 36.  Two years.

Two fucking years

is the beat of a moth's wing.

A Pity Party

The nickle
didn't weigh much,
chipped from thumb.
It didn't make a sound against the wishing well walls
on its way to the pool
and silhouette expectant.
Ripples and a splunk.
Unlucky forever.
I know I could
make a
sound.

Detox

Watching a Japanese firebrand
whip up a dish and spit lyrically
sonorous of luck and hard work
while customers guffaw, I feel
handcuffed.  How do I not speak
fluently in.  Tapestries of fragments.
Yep.  800 words for yes in my
vernacular.  1100 words and
phrases for no.  Counting
inflections, of course.
Talking you down in the bathroom mirror: "I believe in"
panting heavy.
Other lives.
Other time.
A galaxy
far, far,
away.

Smoker 63

I dunno why she hit me.
Alcohol.
And Xanax and Klonopin and
the rest of the family.
Frustration with
death.
Knowing the chalk will be there
long after the detectives
and theories have gone away.
To die
four thousand two hundred and eighty one times.

The family.  The totems to power
an engine capable of collapsing stars.
Constellations winked out of existence
with a sigh and a "cheers!"

The "what if"s
tapped
from the end of the sound,
rattled bones,
against garbage can bodies.
Interned and buried
still breathing.
Your mistake
was
leaving us alive.              Footnote 4A56: storytelling trope #830

No one ever said you have to kill yourself
at once.  Rules are made to be broken.  Paws
for applause.
It is a strange rabbit hole
to pursue.
There is nothing beyond self loathing and escape.
To be afraid of embracing yourself
is fractal.
To understand that you cannot be
is torture.
To understand that you should not be
is light.
To understand that you are
is power

to leave constructs behind.
Water is wet.
The wind blows.
Stone is stony.
Leaves are fibrous.
Fire is fluid.
Sadness is absence and so is happiness.

There once was an all knowing all being that made an awl.

To live long enough to see the world end.

How many times should one die
before


                                        Halt.

                         

Smoker 62

Waiting for McCourty to show.
The old itch for crack.
And still wondering if he's dead or not.
It is kind of funny.
Watching someone self destruct & when.
Guestimations are a gas.
I do wonder shaman theory,
the idea that there is one in every village.
What happens when two arrive
in the same?

Can they be married?

Or maybe one's powers cancel the other's out
the same way streetlights can mute
beacons in the night sky.

Or maybe
the way fireworks can deafen to the point
sight is the only way they can be conjoined
and thereby render
soap for the masses.

The tug and pull and ... have you seen the shadows move?

Ah, what does it matter.

We all die.  Visions are a prank.  A genomic joke.

Laugh, live, love,
behind a cigarette.

Song To My Mother

If you had the years back
that you whispered about
across the faux granite kitchen table cleaned,
crosswords and papers and notes,
packets of artificial sweeteners,
phone pamphlets and applications,
half eaten toast and tea cups gone cold,
unfinished math problems and pencils,
the loose change unorganized and all
face up, broken earring and tabloids,
and oh so much mail to sort
would you break into the same pieces
the same repurposed tupperware
for your parts
waiting
for someone to reassemble you?

Wednesday Brunch Menu

Holding my pillow inhaling my own armpit funk
three days into abandoning showering to rest
to fuck
the option arrives to eat a breakfast sandwich
that does not include you.  I would rather starve.

Smoker 62

I know we stopped
a long time ago.
Scraping taste buds
to remove goo.
Please, let's not do
an entire pack
in one evening
regardless
of how manic
we are.

Silencer

Five hundred caliber.

Minister.

A preacher.

A reacher to end all things in a blink.

End all blood red vomit in a sink.

You and I we think.

Or maybe we stink.

Like dead bones dug up from ages ago.

Living bones are love from a time we cannot remember.

We remember most of everything.

Everything being a blanket over nose.

And mouth. How the is a construct to help us go.

Self conscious for a year and smeared.

Smeared lives.  How many times do I have to die before

I learn.

Get tired of waking up.  Don't we get tired of waking

anew.  Everything bleeds, sir!  Can you walk?

It doesn't rhyme.  Die or due to die or sky walk

backwards, strewn body parts and a head said

headset scripts are reserved for the deadset

skipset skip around everything exists at once

all the time every time dinner time kill every one

kill everything when you're born in a hell bear everything

every sound every taste every touch every beam of light

kill everything hurts.

Snort aloud.  Did that come out of my mouth?

Or did it come of out of my nose?

Everything hurts.

We were simple then.

Broken

bird

wings

gaudy

and 'purdy.  Some flash if the sun shone right.

Some photos to take if there was good moonlight.

Black grease and cages. Fences and contained rages.

Never leave home without a hawk is still rule.

Thirty three and still no actual tool.

Except the one I've honed.

Honed to protect a traveling home.

Snort laughter.

A bastard. Fantasize about deer slugs ending everything

that embodied what fear was

thelastthoughtyouhadworthhavingIhadanightmareaboutmydadand

I swear every day I want to kill him

with an antiaircraft weapon

shoot through the walls because if I step in

I'll walk right into his arms and he'll son me

the way he did for too many eras

and I will never make that mistake again.

Where his life ends my world begins.

Is the falsum I tell myself

to feel my time on this earth is worth its wealth.

I get tired of dreaming, screaming awake

like my 500,000 horsepower engines have a date with fate.

They don't.  I want to break the silence.

Take the forms to where they live.

Take the forms to where they build.

Talk is cheap, the market is.

Claps claps clapsclapsclapsclapsclapsclapsclaps.

The fires of rage do not have fences.

Chain links.  Fingers poke through, without rails, we speak.

Pain does not have boundaries.

Your worst self may be the best in the foundries.

I don't know where you're from.

I don't know who sent you.

What I know is I have been numb.

Numb for too long. A hip bone with no femur to tongue.

Getting our body together

300,000 days at the river.

Maybe not that long.

Time stops living life as a

NAN