Auralport

Good Evening Hon'

Every now and then

the horns blare

loud enough to hear

if you've sat quietly

long enough.

The CSX.

The coal train express.

See excess.

The CSX.

When it didn't matter whose car keys you left

at the fishing hole in the ignition

to make a joke seeing the CSX

on its way to demolition and

fireworks or laughter at keys and fleet feet

while 9 foot poles glimmered

with a bite.

Sometimes

sitting quietly enough. The horn blares

and carries through the valleys

of Pittsburgh,

echoes through the trees,

and rolls across a pillow,

to the ears.

All of the graffiti

traffic jams,

catfish and mud and grease gloves,

undrinkable fresh water,

shores of nails and glass and warm sand,

tunnels and bridges.

The quietly blaring horn

through the depths of Summer's coffin,

the songs of Autumnal pallbearers:

Can you hear?

You are already home.

Huckjspaqua

They always tell you

quiet rivers run deep

drowning is the most pleasant

way to go. Flicker

ing. Isness. A way to be. Isms.

Until you do all nine lives.

Burning Down the House

Stitched together with two inch pipe.

Scaffolds welded with skin.

A tooth here, a loose finger there.

Steerage pressure fit

with glimmering coils of hair.

Saliva to grease the switch panel's buttons.

Depress, spring up, with a snap, the familiar

clap of the shatterproof caps, protect

the finger nail toggles touched closed.

The grates and walls pitted and torn and replaced.

A prize toe trophy for a pressure failed hole,

to keep the air in, taped in place with a

carved and aged sole. Remember

the boarding party from five years ago?

The pirates and bounty hunter's muzzle glows?

The interdictors, the uniformed, the cloned,

and metal mated? What memories. What loves.

Alive with their blood.

Adrift, it is time to depart. The outer rim home

to ice worlds and its blinking quiet eye,

a tear in time, a channel glitched tone,

it is time to depart for the further reaches yards

and make everlasting alloys

from what has grown.

Growing Up

The bottles for unborn art projects

and night inspiration and dust collectors

and pages of rolling papers and gifts

to no ones and holidays and craft

festivals. What was that? The wind.

Still schizophrenic. Still insomnia?

Still, somehow, drinking.

The thick

Whiskered Nights

I stalk you. You stalk me.
We're a cat furred family.
With a knickknack
pattywack
flay flesh from all the bones
and leave a special carcass
at our best friend's home.

"...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.