alternating/current

The fluctuations of swell and cringe;
Fascinated by the false lucidity of dreams

Satisfaction is a belly full of holes

Serotonin lull, waking to a dream,
Or the dream is a waking thing, a thing awake

Blackened harbor, ships,
Fire floating on the water,
Cats dragging in fingers,

I was walking down the sidewalk with a pocket full of change
But of those I passed there and on, all the faces looked the same

Radio transmitters,
knobs and dials, buttons, the static hiss of

Crabapples in his front lawn, to be raked away
The Day, slowed and shaven hours, the stubble of calendrical x's,

Keeps putting clothespins on the curtains,
Paranoiac,

I'm still alive, I'm still dragging this cross through the mud
scarred with ghosts' chains

Combin' his hair, left the water runnin'

Agape, the gulf peers back into the shameless eye,
Answers, fruitless webs of associations,
Questions, can we ask only new questions from now on?

Smoke filtering through the blind shafts,
oh god it's a frightening fire,
an explosion in limbo,

Time, a couple of hands clasped and turning the helm in place
Man, a couple of fools apart twisting image of face

Cabins flooded / leaking ducts / bathroom sink left running

Graves at this little gulp, staring into blind eyes on a twisted gulf

Unsalvageable wreckage, a red rusty flood
through the image of my hand
(Why did they photograph my hand?
Only my hand?
You can see the tattoo shriveled and unwreckognizable,
an anchor,
You can see hospital gown,)

Rock solid sponge painted with the berry juice of burst eyeballs,
Homely nosegay of balls of wire and spikes,
Candy coated IV line running to the center of the earth,

kill me
kill me

A half of a grapefruit, a packet of sugar, and a bottle of lotion

I will miss you for the rest of my life,
I will miss you for the rest of my life,