dreams

you beautiful neurotics
what has happened to you?
I love you and I miss you

today is a sated ghost
wandering because
all is not lost

the sun feels awkwardly
like heaven
as I drive down eroded

former factory town roads
mist and sunbeams
lingering unlit lightposts

I don't wanna stir you
but you look gorgeous when you're sleeping
and I can say that even if I'm creeping

and it won't stop being true

you are all my loves
bundled in tarmac and paint lines
I remember you as tongue

twisters and half-rhymes
expensive taste and free verse
dancing around in a unitard

looking awfully silly
or maybe you read a book of poetry
as blades of grass swayed

as effortlessly as they do

marry me to the open road
where I spent my life with you
in my head, where everything's perfect

and your love is right there
I think I know it
I've been writing about it forever

centralize

somewhere between court jester and his majesty
lies unmistakable brutal truth and honesty

sometimes in order to put out a fire
people set themselves on fire

thrones submerged under seas of gasoline
fashioned themselves from polyethylene

other times in chaos worlds writhe and wretch
their peoples empty and outstretch

there is no romance in decaying love
painless pristine hearts incinerate their gloves

would that it all conformed to one worldview
but weakness and desire keep it fresh and new

I had all the answers wrapped up in a sleeve
but those elusive lovers always leave

machina ex deus

meaning asserts itself
drink as much as you can from a rock
don't ask questions
until you have none left

some people tie brain stems
like cherry stems
with their snake tongues

let them flap

meanwhile, in Ohio
without rhyme or reason
flames lick themselves out
while no longer leaping from the eyes
of a demiurge

stem cell

cradle in a corner
rocks in place
door swings open
door slams shut

no doors
no windows
just enough room
never entered
never left

not a room
not a ghost
not alive
not a concept
not a poem
not a word

a baby marveling at the noises coming from its mouth
drooling all over himself
deflated
folded over a coathanger
hung in a closet

what choice do you have

the rubicon is flushed

the wind has blown
the tree has fallen from beneath the cradle
the roots have climbed out of the earth

a child is borne
down a river
of tangled wood

not a concept
not alive
not a ghost

pit of hope

recurring fugue state
recursive fugue, static
noise, life and memory
fixed in the brain
broken away and fictionalized
bad luck carved down wrists
holding shards
blemished by anguish
a poorly rhymed face
ill-remembered
remembered ill
a rhyme poorly faced
anguished by blemish
shards holding
wrists down, luck carved bad
broke, in a way; fickleness
lost in the mind
silence, death, and memory
recursive fugue: statics
this recurring fugue state

Limerick for My Kitty:

I now have a cat named Billy.

He hunts wild game and he's silly.

I can not take a crap

Without him in my lap
Which could end with me screaming shrilly.