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. 

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.

Missing Ingredient

Bass.
Each heartbeat a
universe.
Manifest preached-
Bass.

Tube Socks

Arrayed beside the new pack
you're nice.  Pink from the day I tossed you in
with the red hoodie I've been meaning to return
to that lovely fellow, Justin.
Thread bare, some of you, when I forgot to clip
my fingernails and pulled up to my heel
a tiny bit too hard and your ankle opened
with a "yowch!"  Floppy necked from
days behind the wheel, sweating, sweating, sweating,
never the same after I peeled you away
from my brown skin turned gray
from a sauna boot.
Black half sideways stripes from the time
my bicycle chain locked and my shoe
tangled in the toe cage and my foot
sprung free of the laces only to catch in
black greased chain links and slowly tip over
unable to get off the finicky road machine.
Timber!
A new pack.  Is there anything nicer?
The thick threads not yet beaten flat.
The odor of odorlessness.
Empty odometers, the lot of you.
Excitement ripping the package open hurling
them every which way.
First the left foot.  Then the right.

Well there is something nicer.

How about that first stroke of a new deoderant?

Ooooooooh, that is a good one.

To the general store!

Blade Runner

Every time you walk the razor
you renew the lease
on this body.
One more nail to hang a picture.
One more mural committed to walls.
One more reason to see
the sun rise and bathe the evening slag
and die.
Every time you walk the razor
to renew the lease
on this body,
promise me the evening sky
when the chimney swifts are feeding
and the bats are beginning to take wing.
That silk spectrum sky between
diamond black heaving and
sunlight's bleeding.
Every time you walk the razor
and renew the lease
on this body,
show a glitter of teeth
to let the engine seething
breathe underneath.

Docking Procedure Aboard the JXL-789 Dread Class Junker

somewhere near the inner system weigh station just outside Sol's asteroid belt

"Is there anything you would like to declare JXL-789?"
Thumb hovers over the channel go button.
Press.
"Yeah."  Back to static.  Six navigation screens,
twelve cursors, and two graphs light the cabin
in delicious aquamarine and yellow hues
against shadows and ROY G BIV LEDs
snugged into recessed plastic sheet body hues
hiding metal black frames and wires underneath.
"What would you like to declare JXL-789?"
Tones and warning notes fall to silence and rejoin
with harmonies and arpeggio bells.  Custom re-encodes
because if you are going to live your life on a ship
you might as well make the good sounds really good.
It is always a good day when the inner systems defense network
does not want
to turn you and the ship you rode in on
into star dust.
They are still looking and scanning
without teeth.  Sniffing.
"It's been a long year.  Merry Christmas, assholes."

Unstrap while the processors wait for guides, coordinates
and paths
and dance.

Spin on the ball of the boot and skip shuffle on reinforced heels
capable of magnetism on the grates, not now.  Tap your heels together
to activate or moonwalk off the main deck.
Door open.
Swoosh.
Door close.
Swish.

Bounce.  Skip down the hall, the gravity generator doing it all
and a bag of chips snatched from the snack harness
as we slide.  The four heavy fold mauler engines make the entire floor
buzz standing still for a second before jumping farther in
headset on.  Fingertip to wrist to clip the channel to voice command:
"Josephine?"
"Yes, captain" the ship comes back.
"Can we turn off the gravity?"
"Yes, captain."

Heading toward the weapons deck
flicking switches along the way.  Lights on, lights off, lights on, lights off.
The weigh stations are boring as .... and take all day while they scan every
nook and bay for things we're not allowed to keep or must declare.
It's not fair, but it keeps the peace.  Nodding to bass in my head
there is no time for grief.

Fourteen chips in a bag, crumple and pocket it with the weapons deck flying close.
I learned a long time ago not to keep the big bags of chips stocked.
That was a nightmare to clean.  I still find crumbs in control panel seams.
"Joesphine, hail channel all speakers."
"Okay, Hobbes."
It's a dance party in zero gravity
until I bounce off the weapons deck lock.
Pat the chest mount key and air surges through with me,
pressurized of course, but one of these days I will get around
to fixing the meter that keeps the transition clean.

"Can I have some gravity, Josephine?"  Close enough to the grates
to land like a cat, it kicks and I rebound off of my thick padded knees.
Floodlights on, my mech is brilliant after a thorough wash through its lock;
opposite, my runabout fighter and far to the back where
the floods barely touch is my junker craft.  As much enormous claw and saw
as engine and wing.
With gravity good and the stage set we dance,
a little mud still stuck in boot treads falling off
through the grates
to no music
save for the bang and clank of crampon, leather, and jingle shuffle of jacket
playing in time to the jungle electronica bounding through my head.
"Ain't nothing like being back home now" laughed.

Poke and prod a few buttons hear and there with a twirl and catch
of dogtags orbiting my neck at the end of their chain.
Change the lighting a little and flip it back.
"We all get down in the disco," murmur dream.

Outside, lights flash in the darkness of space.  Req lights blink on and off,
portholes glitz and glam.  Point lights on fins and antennas wink and shine.
Waste dumps in a fireworks comet tail of crystals.
Get the party out of the way before things get serious.

"JXL-789 you are cleared.  Welcome back.  Stay out of trouble,"
comes over the public address system.  Fingertip to wrist:
"Thank you, thank you.  We'll do right.  We're not staying long."
Static.  The anthem of the inner system begins to play
with it's brass and snare and begins to fade.  Time to get going.
We're okay in their book.

Touch the mech, the runabout, and the junker.  Remember
the adventures and the scorch marks and dents that will have to be replaced
once we get back to Earth.
If we can swing it, I'll get them a paint job or two too.
What stocks ran out in darkest space.
Bring it back in one piece.  What is in the cargo hold
will buy it all back two fold.  Maybe three if we're lucky.
The junker life.
Gravity off, torpedo to the flight deck.  Settle the lights down
along the way.

Harness in to the driver's seat.  Why do I bother to keep passenger seats
these days?  "Ya never know what you'll find out there," I remind myself.

Six navigation screens glow a cool blue.  Cursors have settled.
Speed read the paragraphs and glyphs.  The coordinates are true.
Mind the sleeping weapons systems orbiting Sol outside,
tuned to be there whether the confederation of nations on Earth
is old or dissolved and built to bizarro specifications new.

The party is over.  Do business as business should be done.
The graphs shift and change on two screens.  The other four
blaze deep orange on black as cursors snap into action and read out.
Four heavy fold mauler engines
capable of moving a Marrowclare class close to light
rumble the bones of Josephine as we begin the long descent to Terra
on the ecliptic.  Switches and buttons and a few dials more.
Once she is good to ride I can let go and head for sleep.
I can't remember the last time I saw the Atlantic.
The calendar read out says it will be snowing when we reach orbit.
I worked on an ornament on my way through the outer giants.
I hope the entry station to walkabout has a Christmas tree.
It'll be nice to sit with other people and cheers a cup of
long steeped steaming tea.

Falling Out Of Love

It is easy to forget
that a Millenium Falcon
is just as hard to brake
as it is to get that @#$%er started.

Question Marks 5

Dear Dr. B.,

I have no jokes.

I wanted to tell you that I appreciate
the gift you gave me of composing myself
through metaphor.

I want to kill again.

I want to kill again.

I want to kill again.

No matter the question, I am the answer am I not?

I do have a joke.

A boy and a snowflake walked into a bar
to see a priest and a penguin
and a polar bear.
The boy said "hello."
The snowflake fell off its bar stool
while trying to sit down.
What did the priest say?

Nothing! It was pulling out the bar stool
for the boy.

I try to remember the places I cannot go.
And keep them close to my main functions.
I wanted to tell you
that I appreciate deeply
the gift you unlocked inside of me.
The gift you forced inside of me.
The gift that continues to give.
Of gab.  Of metaphor.  Of seeing my head
as the machine that shatters under too much pressure.
Of clockwork, of metal, of timed teeth
that need complete harmony
to tell time
that will work
down to 5000 miles from the surface.
Of plates that must move and skate
across molten rock and can.

Once the glass cracks
and the teeth seize.  And the planetary gears begin to fuse:
fear.  With reason.

I want to kill again.

Climb instead.  Dump ballast.

Do not let the wristwatch melt.

You gave me a way
to understand and I have held tightly to it.
I will not allow the coil springs to knot,
the gears to chew themselves apart,
the glass face to break,
or the metal to rot.

I will be a watchmaker,
sure handed and occulus.

I will track you down
and see you soon.

Sincerely, Mr. D.

Wanted To Trade

One 1985, five-foot-ten and three quarters,
one hundred and ninety pound,
fifteen percent fat, brown eyed,
thick eyebrowed, fully functional,
rugged and resilient, disease and virus free,
sport utility, combat ready, body
for trade.

Wanted: one brain with aptitude in mathematics
and a natural acumen for the sciences and brilliance
in programming.  Second language optional
though preferred.  Must be clean of all physical ailments.
Preferably concussion free though some wear and tear
is understandable and acceptable.
Must also be free of mental disorders.

In this exchange you will receive one body
with a brain included.  The brain is degenerative
with some afflictions (hereditary, genetic, and
trauma induced) though with an aggressive maintenance plan
will deliver many decades of high performance,
reasonable memory retention, and
aggressive learning scales.
Please see the manual included for further details.
The brain comes with an acumen for art and language,
problem solving in two and three dimensions,
materials manipulation suites,
aggressive self defense and self preservation protocols,
and an exceptionally flexible spectrum of
preference settings for supreme adaptability
to most environments imaginable.

The body has some permanent scarring
and ink and is otherwise all original.
It has never been totaled though it has
undergone extensive maintenance
to increase power and durability and
comes with a well above average
pain tolerance.
It has seen three major accidents
over its time on the road and through
diligent maintenance rarely shows
signs of wear
beyond the cosmetic.
Note: it is brown skinned and by
entering into this agreement
the buyer acknowledges the difficulties this presents.
Included are the suites of combat,
sport, tool, and machine movements
hard coded to the musculature and skeletal systems.
Fuels range widely with no dietary restrictions and
are accompanied by
a very high tolerance for recreational chemicals.
Vision and other attendant senses are exceptional
in their response rates and high definition
that cannot be reduced except through
manual manipulation.

The body accompanying the brain traded for
must pass a benchmark physical and
be free of ailments, disease, contaminants and viruses.
Below average is acceptable.
Capacity for improvement is a must and
is non-negotiable.  Skin color is not important,
though some variation of white is preferred.
All parts must be original.
Some frame damage is acceptable.
No salvage, wrecked, restoration titles accepted.
This body must also be at least six-foot-one or taller.

In this exchange, the memories and elements of your self
linked to your body and your consciousness trees
will be cross linked to your new body and arrayed
through the framework of your new brain casing
and, where necessary, updated, hybridized, or fully replaced
where redundancy or inferior links are detected.
This will present some shock and challenge,
but acclimation is assured.
Note: due to some complications that may arise
in synchronizing the rhythms of mental afflictions
native to the brain casings hardware,
a 60 day return policy is offered with a one year
free roadside assistance and consultation service
to prevent mortal collapse, fatality, homicidal, and
or suicidal outcomes should these artifacts overwhelm
or consume the buyer.

If you are looking for power, performance, and a
well maintained machine the likes of which you
have not and will never know that will carry you
to the doorstep of 2065 and beyond in style
with a casing that can realize your wildest imaginations
and help you create your visions from the ground up
contact me at the above email address and
we can get the ball rolling.
Talk to you soon.  Thanks.

Jawbone Lisp 2

Each morning wake
to find the teeth maligned.  The wisdom
teeth stopped growing at age twenty nine.
The pain subsided and a new road was in
with leather jacket, collar up, muscle car with fins.

Numbed out for weeks and a bandage round my 'ead.
"No, I have not yet got out of the damn bed!"
Reminded, should I have been paid for the
tracks that were road to side walk laid
I might be a rich fuck instead of slayed;

instead I mouthed off and gave up the tic tacs;
dentist paid.  Not that squirrely.  Not that hurly.
Blind shot and my evening ended early.

Each morning wake,
at least the pain is gone.

Reminded, eating cereal
of what went on.

The jawbone healed up okay.  The pain I went through
resetting it with my own hands was worth it.  I don't owe
hospitals anything.  Every spat and pat of butter blood
into the toilet flushed and back to bed, bandage back
in place was worth it.  Every sneeze and cough that
was brushed off instead of telling friends how much it
fucking hurt to open my eyes absolutely worth it.  I

re set my own damn jaw.  Re lived the night and the gnaw.
The hours, days, weeks, months, and finally got back to
a place where I could yawn without bursting to tears
immediately.
A pain I never saw
coming.  A pain that was months long
humming.
Aye
aye
aye

aye

aye, dog.

Can we split that sandwich?

The Man Who Walked with a Cane and a Smile

"What do you mean you cannot whistle?
What do you mean you cannot swim?
What do you mean you cannot stand?
What do you mean you cannot write left-handed?
What do you mean you cannot sleep?
What do you mean you cannot walk?
What do you mean you cannot paint?
What do you mean you cannot see?
What do you mean you cannot snap?"

Tire the explanations that all seep from one.

"Anyone can if they work at it long.
Everyone can if they are willing
to leave their comfort zone,
to give up blood and sweat,
to think outside of their box,
to believe in themselves,
to accept help from others,
to trust in those around them,
to fight for what they want,
to dare and follow through!"

Tire the explanations that all seep from one.
     Not all life is a choice made or not,
     an action taken or not,
     a day seized or not.
     Some are missing fingers,
     some are blind, some have damaged nerves,
     a single hand, a single eye, weakened bones,
     malformed cells, malformed minds,
     prosthetics in their design, outside
     and within.

"What do you mean you cannot?
Man up!  Get out there!
What are you afraid of!
Have faith in yourself!
Let me help you help yourself!
All you have to do is try!"

Tire of stating the explanation
     that has been a bane of life for decades,
     reminded each time asked then blamed
     for being unable.  Disabled.  Absurd.  Pathetic.
     Sickened by the carousel loop.
     Hope in a next life to be born without legs instead
     to maybe bear a little less scorn.

I Am Going To Die

I am certain that when I die
it will be behind the wheel.
Not because of something I did,
but something I did not feel.
A loose cotter pin, a harmonically vibrating rod.
A bearing wearing metal on metal.
A bolt sheared through in last Winter's frost.
A gear one tooth short whose odd metered song
is lost beneath the 8 cylinder chorus and
the timpani's growling at the tail.
With a thump and a clunk
the dominoes will flop,
into oncoming traffic I will go
until the first law yowls "stop!"
My eyes will burst free of their sockets.
My shoes will fly off like rockets.
Over and over, or maybe over and under,
shell, chassis, and plumbing torn in shreds.
One hundred yards up the street,
beyond the last of the glass
my hand will lay
still gripping the shift knob's steel.
Another ten beyond that,
they'll find my head
with a knowing smile:
"I knew I should have double checked that seal."

Wherein Words Cease

Here.  This.  Now.  Always.

Forward.  No.

Please.  No.

Rake the skin.  Peel.  Sever.  More!

Drink all.  Tear.  Rip.  Cross section.

Spill and catalog and drink.

Sip the path.  The curl and trail.

The tip and pool.  The scatter.  Lick.

Know.  The origin and sea.

Turn back.  Look away.

Sample and core.  Press and preserve.

I have not the stomach.

Sit still.  On the cool museum floor,

forehead burning, palms rough.

Sit still.  See the glass.

In skin.  Chains upon chains of information.

Locked and waiting.

Clean.  Uniform.  Homogeneous.  Undistrubed.

Please stay.  Please stay.

Pill Bug

Everything hurts.
I got too happy.
I got reckless.

Flesh wound.
Rub some dirt on it.
Wrap your rib cage in packing tape and flexible ice packs
and stroll on.

Rotatorcuff?  Rotatorcuff??
Rub some dirt on it!

Sore hip?
Move it! Keep fluids flowing.
Melanin will take care of that pink
missing strip.

Everything hurts.
Do not curl up.
Tuned up with billy clubs.
Do not curl up.

Pull a quirky t-shirt over top.
Duct tape toilet paper over what still bleeds.
You're fine.  You're fine.
Do not be alarmed.

Everything hurts!
And?
Help me?
Adjust your settings upward. Time has a second component,
do not forget.

Update Drivers

I assume it is something like Entemanns donuts.
It is nice when the pastrys come around,
though impossible to live with.

I love to eat a woman's pelvis, all of the way around.
It is a very unique event down to the second,
but impossible to live with

on a steady diet.  Explain what it is you love to do,
in light of what it is you love to do and can.
Not impossible to live with.

No one eats only cookies & milk and lives for long.
Get some sun.  Prey day licked.
Impossible, no.  Yes, to live with.

Bullet Time

The plate left fingertips months ago.
A moth beat its wings against window screen hours ago.
Seconds ago shower and towel whipped cat
after buffing skin until it reddened.
Weeks ago breaking codeine to sniff
just in case it could increase or break affect.
Seconds after toe nail clipping.
Spit splashing in the sink paste white
three days hours baskets full.
Twenty cigarette buts put out,
fished from stashes found snooped
neighbors watched making conversation.
Wreaths burned and pines too
in a fire two years gone and retinas on.
Eyelashes trained individually
each half minute, staring into the vanity mirror, tweezing.
Each week caressing my throat and
by the three thousandth mile on the seventh second
motion sickness starts to set.
Car door slams and stretch into a yawn
five days ago.
Change your shirt and reach into a closet full of ammunition
ten years old.
Fourteen days ago the mirror said "no" flatly.
Twelve hours before waking gasp.
Paint each fingernail in cross thatch blue
with perfect symmetry tomorrow
sleeping one hand out to dry in the a/c breeze.
Feet still on the fire escape to catch morning rays
before pictures
hours before decent and all hell breaks loose,
clutching firing explosive bolts
"where is the counter?"
Everything that should be marble
for a split of a split of a split second
is stone.  Months ago.
All coming to a halt,
the plate breaks
in an odd number of triangles.
Do not mind
the fine grade
of the shards;
that no one will clean between your toes with tongue.

Out of the Bed of a Truck

Sending "I owe you"s
and "I love you"s
from the bed liner of my truck.

Looking up at stars and down
at my knees tented
believing there is all of you
inside me.  Lip sweating

cooled by the evening breeze
I know the sky
is looking down and blushing.

Power nap.
At the after party.
believing there is all bass to hear
and all your base belongs to me.

Ash over the lip of the truck bed.
Think maybe someone is watching.
Know we are safe
and ash again.

A plume of smoke
rises toward the tree limbs above our faces.
Breathe easy for once.
You are in good company.

Act Your Age

Imp.

The Bridge in Torrenby

"Have you ever been to Deeprath?"

"No.  I haven't."

Cock back.  Night on the cobblestones.
It looks good out today.
Rained yesterday.

They walk
good.
Out of earshot I cannot read lips
before guns come play and barrels zero.

We came here to talk!  We came here
to see how it ends.  Not today.
Hell no, not today.

I will see you both in Deeprath.

It is a helluva long walk.  I'm going to go
ahead and take the private jet and commandeer
a jeep or something to get out to the southwest flats.

You get there how you'll get there.
I'll be there with a camera phone.  In the meantime...

Moonlight mingles with streetlight
on the inch high waves of mercy water,
merc water,
underneath the bridge at Torrenby.
Cobblestones bubbled thoughts
cannons leveled to each and once upon a time
there was a king.
They called him Doctor Strong.

The leather castle unravels and
the resistance of the spring
behind the trigger is an orgasm in the wings.
I hate staring at you through his eyes,
at the ready.  What are you waiting for?
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
I will meet you at Deeprath.

We will settle this.  For better and-

-"bringing you the sounds of the eighties and beyond, this is DJ Batcrypt bringing you the morning coffee and a little bit of who's.   Stay tuned, up next we've got NFL and who chucked up more shots than ever before.  How will they do on assault and battery?  Stay tuned, messages after this."

The Watchmaker

I come home
and the stencil and the etching acids
have been moved.  The fine punch
and whittle knife have moved.
The black cloth for the table,
the thin threaded screws in the stable,
the snips, the lenses,
the zero gauge wire unbended,
the chair, it's cushion, my glasses,
the magnifier, my glove, my apron,
needlenose and all, my two ounce hammer,
kerchief, and key ring,
my pointer, lucky leaf, and my awl.
The irons, the spreader, the cutting wheel,
the oils, my pencil and elbow rests,
napkins and scrap paper,
everything removed from the lamp chest
and left across the table like
an arm of the Milky Way.

Nothing glitters until the lamp is turned on.

From the doorway to our office

nothing is gone

in the light from the window moon shine.

"Time will come like a thief in the night"

reminds me not to fear.  The leather band
between the pincers and the gears
still in place
awaiting another's finger tips
to turn it's dial, the spring a spiral
of coiled silver, embedded,
the face ready to be set and the hands
glued in place with a fine tipped gun
and a more reliable hand.

The door shuts.  The key enters.