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.

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.

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.

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?

Through A Porthole

The size of bent edged metal lodged and twisting
inside her intestines is unknowable, to watch
me fall to one knee for the fifteenth time, blue
red, gold, and phosphorous white
licks of flame bursting from my suits seams.

Break glass, air driven out.  Still burn.  Chemical
blaze.  Extinguisher plumes filling containment.
Still burn.  Over radios screams and crackling tears.
I'm okay, I'm okay!
I can't help you!
Please, listen to me.  I'm okay.

Days that pass and months without incident.
When we arrive at the colony station
the stories we will tell.  Work continues. Monitors
blink and machines whir our songs.
Card games and reading her to sleep.
Nights up with me when I could not.

Check in, check out.  Cautious smiles.
Loose bodies and minds.  Guests, invitations.
Space walks and communiques.
Drops to planets and moons and back.
Stay aboard, take care of the ship while she's gone.
Let go.  Another job lost.  I don't understand
what happened.
I can do this.  Don't worry.  I can-
You have to try.
I can-

Alarms drown thoughts, seals clip into place.
Over radios urgent commands conflict.
Get inside.
This time is different.  The thump of
foot thick steel beams seat to their cylinders.
The whoosh of air gone.  Through smoke dimmed porthole,
her eyebrows broken and streaming,
a hand across her mouth.  This time is different.

Please, listen to me.  I'm okay.  Don't-
The lights turn off.  Extinguishers plume.
I cannot see through the fire light filled helmet, you.
Days pass.  The lights are gone and
the remains of myself charred and
heat grafted to what's left of the suit.

I can't help you.  I love you.
Crackles through
the radio link.
I know.  I love you.
Before it dies alongside the main lights and
the emergency system's too.

I forgive her the blast door ever fallen locked.

The ship abandoned for too many memories
trapped inside.  Too many smiles and footfalls logged.
Too many meals and doors and machine sounds we knew.
The pain of helplessness that must have tore through her
to see the blaze rise from being
without an answer
arrests me anew each year
removed from finding the outer seal lock
against containment, turning the hard key
and blowing myself into the depths of space.
Never again
to tap "I love you" in Morse on the blackened porthole window.

The empty ship still turns in space somewhere
full of memories and aches, scorches, and empty pods.
A keepsake floating in a drawer with drapes.
Perhaps a shoe and a few keys to nothing.
What system it's found
or salvage impound or
if it's fallen into the belly of a star,
no one knows.

Across the reaches, alone on my station, cobbled together
from other ships and wrecks I've come across,
through deaths and births I cannot say,
I still comb signals now and then and smile,
a bit of ash drifting from my cheek.

Once in a while the noise resolves and
I see a picture of her content and shining face.
Brush away the spark and adjust a sleeve's clasp.
We are loved.
We are home.

I Was Promised Flying Cars

Moving the fabric of my bed sheets
between my index and thumb,
imagining all the ways my fingerprints are known.

I was told there would be flying cars
by now.

Replicants?  How funny would that be
by now.

between my index and thumb,
imagining all the ways my fingerprints are known.

It is good to laugh.  Or is it?  I would love to
take teeth.

Every person should have a hobby once mating
falls through.

Prioritizing concerns, once age becomes a real
parcel of actual time is sort of important.
There is a space on the shelf
with a jar that has your name on it
gathering dust.

Ecosystem 400 Atmospheres

Turn on light
to see what has never
seen color.
Iris close.

Silt in focus and beacon.

Know skeletal
under pressure
           far from
                 what keeps warm.

            Aliens!



   20'000 leagues.
 


     where no one can hear you
                  cry.



           


           Laugh.
Stepping across and through the silt.
Snap the map.  Unfurled.
 Two clicks to the bar.
   I heard there was pool there.
        Spit spot, step in time.
             Sally forth
                      or something like that.

         All in all,
         make like a tree
         and leave

                      or something like that.

Silt

and
snow.

           Skeletal and blight,
           spined and black dish eyed,
           unless ultraviolet shines or
           a plain spotlight where no lantern has business.

                Tallyho!




    Above

      a shadow shifts.
  Heavy and wide as an
      asteroid.



            Light unable
                                         
                                       to close the distance.

The Art of Fucking

Do you see
lines, points, and graph theory,
or
do you wrinkle the corner of a pillow
on your couch and curse the propensity
to insist the lights be turned off.
Confined to a time of day.
Manufacture anything
while you're at it.
Laugh over breakfast:
a lime and crackers and a plastic stripped square
of cheese.  Cigarette out
in a sneaker sole.  Blame it on the night.
Never trust an over eager high five.
Feel free
to shift little things in their apartment
30 inches to the left or right
while they are asleep.

How The Story Ends

Wherever he traveled
shadows grew longer and
the stars themselves dimmed.
The animals of the skies
fields and streams
grew hushed, and the winds refused to blow.
He was snared and entombed
by the iron that flowed
through his veins and
he brought with him endless night
as his father before him and his father.

Sqdr

Why haven't you called me?  I called you five times and.  Sol is a wonderful thing that will suck us all.  Unto death, and then we part.  Ways of describing the itch of second degree burns.  Like an avalanche if you can think about avalanches and road hill land slides as.  Snow takes too much time to think about.  Moving north, Cuz'.  I do not have to ever explain to you what I want, when I fucking want it and if you ask me again I will be sure to land you in the fucking.  Hospitals sound great these days.  I'm blind and days unwind and giggle.  Before pulling a tee shirt over your chin.  Ups and apples!   Are the answer if you listen to the sing song holy snush of peanut and jelly.  Can be the best solution to dry humping.  The side of your car is never acceptable during some times of the afternoon.

Ode To Friendship

My teeth do not align
the way they were born to be.
My jaw is made of glass
wrapped in gauze with
rivets through and through.
My knuckles are knit
tightly, cotton and tape and rice glue
stuck between fingers.
A few gaps are filled with gravel,
a few filled with spit and snot.
 Tape wraps around my wrists.
Rope wraps around my ankles.
Lead hangs about my shoulders
to slow me down to your speed.
Fire comes from my ears.
Steam comes my mouth.
Teeth blare loud enough
to give the blind sight,
to make the deaf cry.
We exchange footprints along the
guides.  Scent and sent and scent again.

Best of five.  Best of ten.  Best of sixty one.

Wiped sweat from above,
touch gloves,
you will die.

Tree House

Can I sit in your car?  I do not want to drive.
I want to breathe its scent.
I want to put my hands on your ten and two.
I want to tour your eleven and standard.
I want to pretend I am you and honk.
I want to road rage and fire birds.
I want to talk your engine, pedals,
windshield, mirrors, and visors.

Over the shoulder, glanced backward.
End.  Tall grass.  Dying tree.  Thick moss,
heavy breeze.  Fan tail mushrooms sprout
in hula hoops like stairs.  For when we were small.
Planks have rotted away.  Rope ladder?
Shells of insects and leaves dried to potpourri
that could be pestled, knuckles to palm.
Torn shoelace and an old jacket and a
slumping wet box of .22s

Smoker 52

I killed a plant today.
I taped it back together.
As long as fluids can pass
along the cellulose tubes
with sun for days
it will be fine.  It is not
dead if I do not see it.
Right?  Remember
not closing Torus's eyes
before sliding his body
into the garbage bag.  Before
cutting off all of his whiskers.
You have to see
in the next one and
whiskers are only useful when
three dimensions are-
-together again,
the process was all wrong.
Overcome
with grief
linear paths
are wrapping
rose bush branches
in packing tape
to hear the snap of resistance on thorn

and start over

to do something

anything to agent.

the plant is dead.  Is dead days through.

You are not allowed to leave
until I say so.

Smoker 40 (long drive)

The thin hair lines of exhalations are curling,
fingertip twiddled behind the windshield.

Another stop light, radio tapping feet against
brake, gas, and clutch like a three kick drum set up,
bow saw beneath the driver seat.

Thoughts about how nice it would be to see you soon.

Thoughts about how much happier you will be
after we make things square again

trading your heart for his head.
Take my hand, sweetheart.
I will do the first half and,
if you are up for it,
you can finish.

The rest is mine to worry about.  Everything
taken care of.  I know a good place or two
that will put a tidy bow on our hours together

so we both
can go home safe.

Before leaving, fingertips making ringlets of your hair
and winding down the day,
we'll catch up and stamp the wax
to seal what can never be said again and slip loose
the corrugated aluminum ring on
that red bottle of wine you've been saving
for the question.  Maybe slice some cheese
and crackers
and listen
to the frost's creak and chip march
across the edges of the living room window's panes.

Touch Noses

My boots were cooling
after tough reentry
from the upper atmosphere and

your cigarette was a centipede of ash
black tailed.

The scarf my ex gave me was around your neck and
I was on my way to the floor to sleep or swim
on elbows toward the door.

"I have to wake up tomorrow."

"I have to wake up now."

"I can't."

"You can."

"Where is my damn wallet?  Come on, beautiful!"

"No!"

The snow was no deeper than any other December.
I remember the long stumble home.  The coffee table
going on its side.  The ashtray smacking me in the eye
still in your hand when the lights went out in yours.

Her words repeating through your still mouth.
Touching you is like petting a horses nose.
Spooked every step of the way and

remembering your gray rooted dreadlocks and
chain smoke rumble laugh and
how we left the pub that night,
glass bead snowmelt on our foreheads,

promise where our lips connected,
softness where the hoop of your ice cold
piercing touched my nose and
fire leaped through

to a heap I neglected
for too long and
consumed you and me.  I'm sorry.

You were an accident.  I was too.
In pieces, that night, always forgetting.
Drowning until my gentle heart

floats to the surface of an ocean
I did not know I plied
until the night we touched noses.

Horse Blinders

Chomping at the bit.  Chomping at the bit.  Chomping at the bit.

I howl.  I can't fix it.  But I can change.  No, seriously.

I howl.  I want something else to it.  There isn't.

Stay alert.

Orthogonal

Seeing your smile has been great.
Products of you and you and

the world on slow tracking almost pause Woo like,
except the doves

were smoke drifts around the room, Saturned.
I'll pay money to see

that any day is a good one
when friends are close and enemies are

far the fuck away.
The difficulty comes

when I start to see
you, me and them as a collection of organs.

Little more.  A holdover from Kindergarten
has not changed.

"Will you come with me to the movies on friday?"
Okay, maybe no.  To see your smile

in common and not
through the run and shoot offense of conversation

sticks with me
over the coffee table and meteor impact empties littered there.

We used to meet up to play tag
because there was nothing else to do.

I don't miss it so much.

Bad Music at the House Party

I know she hit it off with him and
he will never see her again and
the worst thing I feel, the best I can muster, is
I wish there was a better song playing
for their breakup.

Geese

I brought bread.
The duck baby keeps diving.
Fishing like I wish I could.
I brought bread, but the shoals are
spilling over with plates so I
skipped a rock and it bounced two timer over his beak.
The couple
laughs because they've been
talking about how difficult it's been
for him to skip rocks and I
have been winging them
like a full time starter
on an em ell bee team.

It's been
a little bit of back pocket hawk.
Chilling to say the least.
I think I am,
but what they are
is beginning to flirt with the beast.

The rock goes and it makes
a little bit of wave and the bit
bites the water and the water waves
bite the first
across the sandbar and it goes
to bite the lip.  Heave away my johnnies
heave a way out through.

The geese resettled.  Cross river and
the tugboat captain lights up the lock.

We're far too late.

Horny At Work

I keep getting  horny at work and I don't know
who else to tell.  Do you know what it's like
to be forced to walk around to get what you want
to get done?  I'd rather sit all day then stand
for a little while before the end of my shift.
You're not breaking my heart but God
damn you're close.  I'm going to think,
for a while, where you can't see,
near the baths, to begin to consider
I may be on the wrong tracks; more
importantly, though, I need time
to consider the dragon
I was chasing was
the wrong
one after
all.