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.

Falling

The familiar metal glide hiss

rises beneath the church mum shush

stream of faucet water through the aerator 

into the pit of the bean boiling pot

planted in the kitchen sink basin.

Darted eyes see the glint of 

an exclamation points blade

begin its baton tumble

from the bars of the overhead rack.

Can a knife be caught, snapped

out of thinning air

between fingertip's

unzipped 

wails?

By a handle, perhaps.

Certainly not

by the hairs of toes.

Misplaced for convenience.

Hidden for necessity.

Between jars to drink from

and forks and spoons.  To eat

what is on the menu.

Can a knife be caught, snapped

out of screaming air

between thick palms

resting day's weight

on cool cast iron?

Mother shush falls

beneath ringing ears and heart's throb.

Hands do not move.

The blade clatter swallowed

by the nine part percussion section

that followed it down.

The second hand moves once more.

The pot, full, burbles to the drain.

One blink.  One more.

Turn off the faucet and the kitchen light.

Go to bed.  There is nothing on the menu

tonight.  Tomorrow, perhaps.

Breathe tomorrow.  

Paint The Corner of The Plate

If
I ever do take one looking,
flip my bat,
gesture at the home team's manager
with a throat slit or something similar,
it's not because I am angry.
It is because baseball bores me and
thirty one innings
is quite sufficient.

Every suicide is a retirement,
but not every retirement
is a suicide.

Do You Want To Talk About It

Pace.  Echo.  Pace.  Alright, let's go:

Shiner.  Shiner.  Some things don't heal up.  Some things don't wheel up.  We walk on air and then get up.  To Hawaii and Pittsburgh.  To New York and then sand dust.  To the dunes, then the Pacific, to the lakes and then soft shoals.  To the swamps and the trees,  to the trails and cement.  To never never lands and the houses that meant.  Everything's lost.  Everything's good and then gone.  Everything's looking like 21 and two aces and ten grenades with a spare clip and then gone.   Everything's ice and then boss.  Everything's numbers and then bomb.  Everything's looking like a thing and then not and while it takes a minute to be about it along it comes up real short at the cost and accountant is looking like we about the bounce and a toss and instead what we got is the  witch and the flame and across the game is a cross up in white light blue name and the trough is full with somebodies blood and there's a body on the ground and no one can spot that outlines name.  Damnit.  Shiner.

April One

I scream and rage and want the world to burn
because you are not mine.
Seven days removed, I take the same deal and hope
for the world to end.
The pain is the same and I live the days and
misfortune over.
I live the stupid shitty, fuck fuck, shitty, how the FUCK,
why, how could I have been
That out of touch when you needed me absent.
Signals.  Neutered
for your own good, in retrospect did you want?
From the start, impossible.
Yes, I remember how we met.  I wanted to know
everything about you.
I still do.  Lines in the sand.  We were on different
paths the whole way.
Can you imagine our conversations now that we
know what we know?
I doubt we'd get along now for more than a few days.
Development.  I lied.
We would.  I would.  I still crack empty jokes
because there is a little bit
of your voice inside me, refusing to die. Weird
is what you call a pigeon
that has one foot, chilling out on an exhaust grate
in Manhattan like you
are the one who interrupted its day.
I suppose one of these
days I will settle down and saw someone to bits
out of boredom
after several dozen years of faking it to
make life easier.
I will keep in touch, in case you do the same.
The letter will have
no return address, but its contents will be a series of
tests to be sure you are
who the person who opens the envelope is.
On down the road.
One of these days I will stop sawing myself to pieces
to help me remember
the day I knew the family photo had me in it
kind of.

Smoker 48

Single file
Down the aisle
Until you meet your match.

Years from now
Learned your how
Come home, door greet: "meow!"

Not the one
That was as fun
More like a "the key tray is for your gun

Too."  Ahem.  How was your day?
Mhm, uh-hunh, okay.
Good on you.  I am too tired to play.

Single file
Down the aisle
Until you meet your match.

"It's in your head"
Perception's bed
Moth wings on walls, pinned spread.

Where do they go
Rejects row
Moonrise fast, sun rises slow

When viewed from the bottom of a well.
Inhale fast.  Exhale.  Time bled away in spell.
Gray ruins and rune map evaporate
into the evening wind,
Where I am buried, I can never tell.

Glass Shard No Larger than the Razor's Tip

Sitting still: four thousand three hundred & 2 decisions per square inch.

Driving: six thousand five hundred and seventy six decisions per square foot.

Cycling: nine hundred and two thousand, five hundred and six decisions for every two and a half feet of road distance covered.

Standing: six hundred and twelve to five hundred and 8, pushing nine, decisions per inch.

Sleeping: zero point zero repeating to nineteen zeros and then a one (7 million billion bit coins per day, approximately 18.2 million twellks [tk]).

Jigging: four hundred and two decisions per square inch.

Dancing:sixty six decisions per cubic foot.

Boxing: ten decisions per cubic foot.

Forty thousand cubic feet per minute at three trillion inch seconds divided by cumulative leaf wax, hold the nomial and trailing for stones, glass is about fourteen thousand decisions per thought, correcting for Coriolis, if the paper weight is going to make it through the window skipping off the lip of the desk, taking subsonic/near sonic flight into consideration.  just saying.

Radioshack to fucking Radioshack
because I already tried the grocery store and their sign specifically says "this is where electronics go to die and be parted and be reborn into new electronics" and I know for a fact that cannot happen without the power of tweezers, good day ma'am!  And good day to you too sir!  And I hope your child catches AIDS if I do not find a tweezer to...

...he used to tell me to be nice every day when I left for school.  If I find those tweezers, the cashier is getting stabbed first once I get them out of the package.  The assistant goes next, while he's on the phone to the police, not because he was on the phone, because he didn't trust that sometimes people need stabbed.  With tweezers.  That they sold me.  Multiple times.  Until they die.  Maybe you shouldn't have sold them to me.

A hardware store that doesn't carry the fine arts
is no store for hardware at all.
Keychains and no... ...ooooooooo.... ...shit list.
Can I present you a certificate?
Embossed.  With the nut emblem.
It is exactly what it sounds like
and yes:
hot wax dipped
shaven
imprint.  Always shaved.
Never know when you have to present documents in a court of law and I will be damned if those wax printed nuts do match my own.  I'll feign surprise.

Punching: 33 decisions for each foot second.

Headbutting: 1 decision per foot second.

Wrecking: three million three hundred and thirty decisions for each foot second.

Hugging: twelve decisions per pound inch squared.

Panting: sixty two cubic feet per minute.

The lighting is terrible.  Simply terrible.  How does anyone work like this?  Kidding.  Brilliant.

Blow the blood away.  Stop licking.  For heaven's sake, stop licking.  Cut.  Cut.  Cut!  Remember that song about no time for caution?  Well, yes.  It does sound nothing like anything Queen has sung and NWA sold out a long time ago.  It's the natural ecosystem.  To imagine or attempt to imagine anything else is simple fool hardy.  If you had any rocks knocking around down there I could dismantle your entire affinity for hardcore hip hop and what you believe to be rap that is listen worthy without even bringing up Voldermort, but I won't.

Run DMC was great and did you leave your panties in the dryer?  I'm pretty sure those weren't yours.  Yes, they weren't.  Is yeah in the dictionary?

dab dab dab dab

I don't think it is.  I will bet you five dollars.  Just five?  Yeah, just five.  I did my laundry good.  You know...

Schrodinger, yeah.

It counts as a cunundrum.

A cunny drum?

A quinnundrum.

Tiny glass blade balanced on the tip of a metal one.  A two millimeter, perfect, replica. Skin of palm filleted, wet nurse ready, tweezer brigade shot dead at every turn.  It is okay.  Fifty twos have been circling.  There are two ways to find a needle in a hay stack in life.  Okay, three.  One of the three, without someone to toss the stack while you watch behind a fifteen hundred lumen spotlight, is to light the entire stack on fire

then dig through the earth behind.

Blow or suck and swallow.

Blow and let it be the gift that keeps on embedding.  Suck and swallow.  Do not be foolish.  At best, for a few weeks swallow funny until I adopt.  At worst completely miss and roll it up again somehow.

Sitting Still: five hundred and fifty one decisions per minute.

Balancing: four million three thousand five hundred and six decisions per cubic centimeter.

Blow.  Prism slap against glass lip.

Lick.

Yes, tastes like glass.  Dab palm.

Yes.  Tastes like glass.

You Are Not a Child

"How else will I know you?"

You can call me
pint sized sugar cube eyed.

You can call me
apple cheeks and dimple pinch.

You can call me
dingo and Disney squelch.

You can call me
the cross dimensional fortress and keep.

You can call me
junior on my good days.

You can call me
bitch cunt shackle key on my bad days.

You can call me
a lot of things,

do not ever call me heir.

Filters

Jumbo talk,
big wheel talk,
spare .... ...............  spare tires.

Walk with the wind on your mind.
Will you come with me?

No?

Yes.

 Biding time
to do disgusting things.
You've made the list,
the sign out list,
the guest book,
the thing not progressing toward a thimble
sharing the needle
press of sanity against the "do not do"
"how will I explain it when they
catch me in the dark?
But you may have a list
too"s.

Catch me in the dark if you.
It'd fair.  On the last days
I expect to see you,

"because I will be there"s

on your last too.

Endless Battle

do it

...do it

....do it

do it!

do it!

DO IT!

DO IT!

duet

duet!

DUET

DUET!

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST SHUTUP!!!

I CANNOT!

I cannot.  

I can't.

you can

you can

... you can 

ha ha ha.  yeah, no.  

In all seriousness no.

do it

...do it

....do it

do it!

do it!

DO IT!

DO IT!

ffffff...  I am not thrilled.

That is a-ok.  There'll be treats.

Do you remember what happened the last time we got into this?

So do you.

I am not thrilled.

Join our club.

Holiday 8

Tree trimmed, low brimmed
but alright because
New Years is right around the corner like

Egged nog, face fogged
but alright because
New Years is round the corner like

Dream state, cream made
but alright because
New Years is right around the corner like

Nine shots, girl's hot
but alright because
New Years is round the corner like

Whatever whatever

fair friends in more fair weather cuz

New Years is coming like

He said, she said, witnesses

fitness and weaknesses

New Years around the corner like

Bar fights, low lights 

all of it heeled

with a New Year coming on like

Bad dreams and poor seams

and magical mis-

the New Years is right around the corner.

No tree and no spree,

for week years we could see

we pounded and shook hands

we held up, and could leak,

we knew things and true speak?

we had dreams

and saw peaks

but the New Year is

right around the corner.

That Party You've Never Been To at That Thing You've Never Seen

It is just like that
thing you penciled and had high aspirations for.

It is not like
some one forgot along the way. It is just that.

Period.  Like
someone did not get the memo and we're all hands up.

I'm willing to be there.
If you are willing to admit defeat, Summer?

I know what I am
talking about, firm, if you are, half the time, scratch a brow, maybe?

Through the Carousel

Entry speeds match,
but who brakes first
and who brakes last.

Tail out over rumble strips and the run off
to plastic water drums and flame glorious realignment.

My eyes are on you and your
glowing ceramics and white rims
spinning in place

and my skin
pulling away from it's face
along the high line

I took 43 out of 45 laps.
The crash
will be
your black flag

if you come out of it still running.

I am all metal
toward the exit
with enough track
to hold one set of tires.

Damaged Goods

Take me home
please.
I have no ice cream in my freezer
but if that piques you
I will promise anything
without second thoughts
if you promise not to
have any.  Let's play
telephone, let's play sex,
let's play anything and
play off whatever is next.
Take me home
please.
I've nothing to do and want
honestly
nothing to do with you tomorrow.

If I could kill,
you're up on the list.
If I could be still
you would be a gift.
Take me home
this one time
and I can promise you
the best night of my life
in recent memory.
The understanding:
my memory is
minutes chemical blacked.

The Cool

Sometimes getting fresh air
blowing across your knuckles
raw feels like the first spring
breeze of the year against
your cheek and everything is okay
for a little while.
For a little while.  The moon
is still high.

Dianimus

Awareness comes
like a trinket
fallen into grooves
of fingerprints
raised for wear
into reliefs of histories and it all feels like
a picture taken from a
distance, passed into the pages of history,
that no one will
be able to account for.
Yet, it is there,
and dying for significance
time knits its fingers
to confer.

Daisies

In the spring time,
I like to lie in the grass
with my head in the over growth,
leaves tented all around,
bottle cap yellow daises springing
higher and imagine
world war three
over the jungle tops,
my Huey nearly eating it
as nature reaches up
and guns blazing and rockets flaring
out in the sunshine,
the pressure of the concussions making
little bubbles of condensation all around,
the end credits rolling
against a backdrop of finger thin columns of
black smoke.  Bumblebees bringing
the ground forces and thup thupping.
I yawn.  Summer is coming.
The real war begins.  For now, though,
my mind plays.

Springtime in France

Everything is turning green again,
despite your best efforts
to burn,
and then, one morning, you realize
it is okay
to lay up your Winter weaponry,
the body armor, the swords,
the footwear, the eye protection,
the gloves, the neck protector,
and the long range sights
for good this time,
because,
biting into the tree bud and tasting
the milk means so much more than
it did, when you knew
it would be the last Spring
you ever tasted in that hell hole.

The crack of the sprig between your teeth
and the question mark
down your throat,
the thought that this might be
where I lay my head to rest for good,
is a thing, of itself, fantastic
to begin to imagine.

As everything turns green,
and the paranoia laced to the promise
new years bring, like Ahab to a whale found,
it comes on strong
everything grows calm and waits
for the sounds of morning birds
to translate from
Winter's hallucinations
to Summer's waking dream
with absolutely nothing in between
besides a little rainfall.

Juice Box

I did buy juice today.  It has been
more than a year to the day
since I bought juice to keep in my home.

My friend tells me
about several a thing
related to juice and we agree
that no matter how poor,
no matter how badly your parent fucks up,
every kid should have the opportunity
to have a sippy cup of juice available to them.

A common denominator.  From young to old.
To cracked out 65 year old woman
asking you if you want a cup of juice,
the distance is bridged instantaneously
once the apple sweetness bites
from the back of that Dixie.

Everything is okay and you are you again,
a kid who fucking loves apple juice
and summer time scraped knees
and dog spit on your mouth
because if you were not out
in the afternoon batting rocks into the woods
what the hell else could you possibly
dream up being in to.

The Writing Comes Apart, Face to Circle

To have in a head the idea of a story.  The bones and muscle
of it all flexing like a body newly waked and unsure of its own
limitations.  Unsure of the points where, yes, this fingertip ends
here and what is felt there is the space where skin does not turn
into low thread count fabric, but joins the surface of the media
and feels.  The space where the idea of being's is ends and
affectation, the extension of the being, begins.  The relationship
between the end of existence and the beginning of
something unpredictable.

I have been staring at a breast.  A woman is trying to
figure out what brand of food her cat will find acceptable and
toying with the idea that it is, after all, an animal and dissecting
within herself the reasons why she should care if the pate is premium
or not, because the cat will not starve itself longer than it has to,
but I can see it is a losing battle because she wants the cat to be
happy in a way it would not otherwise be without someone
to fawn over it and she grasps that there is no difference
to the animal, but the difference only exists within herself and
it perplexes us both.  Her reaching
for the top shelf.

As I stare at the breast, the woman in tow, the tattoos
trying their best to be colorful plumage half hidden by
the flora of Friday night "things to do, if only you knew"
question beggar's sweat suit fronds, I find it harder than
the question of enabled cats to grasp the question of
what it is men see in the cup or two of fat poking up
where clothing ended too soon for the weather we are having
outdoors.  Maybe in another season I would
clap her on the back and exchange something like a "good job
with the tits there" in so many, and different, words, but now
I am just weirded.

The appeal is long gone with my own changes and the logic
slips by like a wet plastic shopping bag in a work clawed hand
wishing I lived closer to the grocery store and hoping
the miles slip by with speed before I lose my grip and
demand answers from an inanimate object. She takes a step toward
the right and my vision focuses new, still fixed, on the previously obscured
face of a ten year old girl who has been watching me wrestle
with nonsense and compunctions of orientation and motives
far longer than I realized a ten year old
could fix on anything.

I am reminded of a story I wanted to tell as our eyes meet and discuss
several a many thing in a span of seconds before she realizes
her mother has moved again along the aisle of packaged meat
and she is expected and quite possibly late of course
for what could be the umpteenth and deciding time for a trip
to the wonderland of the cookie aisle.  I smiled and waved back.
The cat food woman sashays beyond me to the foot locker of foibles
to perhaps be drawn upon for later character sketches and
I am left to wonder,

left to hope that maybe in the time she spent she caught
a reflection of what I still chase and what she still has to learn to hate
or may never have an opportunity to and instead be, besides,
but beyond the paper lion and the twig mouse I am reminded
of a story I wanted to tell, as her face came into focus and trotted away,
about a time when I saw a man look at me with fusion in his eyes
when I was too young to remember and it ended
where the divide between memory and memorial stones build walls
too high to see above.  I want to be remembered in the way
I can't remember my own.  I want to be apart.  More than anything
apart from the story.