the sorry skin you're in

christie’s half full
and it’s four twenty
a.m.

and i’m faced with a dilemma

sleep sounds nice

but then i’ve got this
coal going too
mintlemonkiwi
jesus how do i sleep now
my girl shrugs
the night is young

pat pat
i’m sorry lungs
and sorry skin
you’re in the dark
far too often

just
smoke in a ghost
in the late hours
of a story
that too quickly
grew tiresome.

works doesn't it or SOME BULLSHIT ABOUT FLOWERS

CAN’T YOU DO SOMETHING
what
HAPPY FOR A CHANGE
what i'm busy
I AM SICK OF THAT PATRONIZING
PHILOSOPHY AND DEPRESSING
BULLSHIT
(goddamn) all right sandy
fine

let’s see here
so there were these flowers
right
RIGHT
and they were so beautiful
that no one was allowed to
pick them and they faded
away

AND
well that works doesn’t it
WHAT A TERRIBLE STORY
WHAT IS HAPPY ABOUT
loss
LOSS YES

because it’s the perfect foil
it’s so much
more than that
it’s the enigma of it
the frustrating nausea
of inability to pick the petals
and watch them in the wind
as if they are us
and we are outside looking in
and we can’t
not just (LOOK) at it
and say

wow here is misery
(HERE HE GOES AGAIN)
here is where i should fail
when i've lost it all
where hope should crumble
like lungs under ash
so tired of working under
the unnecessary strain where i
should not get back up again

but they kept blooming right
WHAT
the flowers
RIGHT
and so it's all going to be okay
WHAT

HOW IS THAT OKAY
HOW IS THAT HAPPY
(goddamn)
i mean
because
it has to be.

it was fear

at the heart of it
i think

we just sort of shut down
stopped mid air
just hanging there
as if we gasped too hard

our eyes finally
saw too much
(no that’s not it)
couldn’t bear the sight
of it any longer
(that’s it
it’s a mental thing)

and with one fell shudder
we cast rationality
to the wind
and gave up hope

that flicker
(consistency
you whore)
a lack thereof keeping
us from sleeping

not knowing
if we’ll get up
the next day
and bother

washing our hands
brewing the pot
driving the whole
way back down
the world again

with a sigh
(and a halfhearted toast)
to the bold successors
of our quaint, sad little experiment.

bridge

there is a bridge
over water somewhere
with bricks of glass miming
what little they know
of stone

shadow masons with
blotched out faces
scurrying up the shaking pillars
like ants with hammers
blinded by their goal

to save
the supports oblivious
to the cars soaring
on their shoulders
driving somewhere

and there is a wobble
the waves are rough now
paint like stone fragmenting
to its base
to the face

terrified of wind and water
breathing heavy and alone
as the ants run home
uneasy
about its apathy

for the cars
soon to fall.

a sinister plan

these are all
greater parts of
a sinister plan
biding time nature
will strike
the allure of light
literally stemming from within
as if to capture what is truly
important for its existence
sitting in darkness
without eyes
or a spine
or nothing
just sticky lines
and survival
and a (not really) brain stuck on
just a couple of functions
just a matter of
getting the catch
consuming it in whatever
weird sickly unhuman manner
it decides.

that’s really gross.

yeah dude
limestone LIMESTONE
giving them prosperity

as if they could ever
understand its titanic
endless growth through time
through the power of rain
water dissolving the world
trees stem in deep
rivers going down
seeming to disappear
in dark
where they will ultimately meet
resistance and decide
to just erode.

shake

in my crevice
i gaze wide-eyed
up at the giants screaming
with teardrops in their hands.
my sight has never made
any sense before, these empty eyes
drowned by the drops falling
through their clenched fists.

somewhere out of my hole,
i feel the earth shaking.
rubbing my blanched fingers against
the walls of dark stone, forever-wet.
my white fingernails, shortly-trimmed,
shine in the
pale light.
and i feel that mover,
i feel that shaker.
i will never know his name,
and the men in the clouds and the
men on the ground – too busy
rubbing grease on their bodies
to weather the rain they rattle
from the clouds with their
incessant screams – shall never know either.

still,
he keeps on thundering,
keeps on rumbling.

cold blue is blood red

pump.

i am the swollen beating heart
that never knows why
when each cell
each plasma-filled membrane
each extraneous extremity
has swallowed a sufficient
saturation of oxygen and the cold
blue discs come hurtling back through
the streets with last year’s garbage
that some sick neuron of a
soporific straining pumps pumps
pumps a pulse electrifying
my spine and forcing my
heart
to give life to my
lips
that speak the words that have cut
at the throat of so many
conveniently turned backs to my
tongue
that swallows katrina’s of
foreign saliva and has performed cunnilingus
on onetoomany a rose to my
fingers
each and all that have punched
and typed and shushed and pulled
and fingered and squeezed and twisted
one-too-many times each and
all to my
eyes
that have torn the clothes off the respected
respectable woman and have pinned her to
the floor my remorseless gasps
absorbing her screams gripping her fingers
tighter for one more
one more even though the carpet burn
is hurting her knees
and finally to my
brain
that through new and abandoned convictions
keeps pump pump pumping neurons to
my shriek of a heart for the next round of
reality tv shows starring shrines of beautiful
gossamer ghouls
but no
i’m no philosopher no misanthrope
i’m just sitting on my chair (you know that black
leather rolling chair that my dad bought me
for christmas a few years back) bent over
the chaotic sea of raped
trees on my desk writing a poem on
a thursday night after a long talktomyself shower
draining time before my favorite tv show
10 pm eastern.

now the pump pump pump begins to slow
and as the choking grays of the walls
and ceiling sink me into flannel
pillows into final lonely terror (or dreams)
because i’m just too tired to masturbate
i clutch my hand to my breast
and begin to love my heartbeat.

you bick wit us, lee?

king
you have your desires
but you are not reasonable

your silk-wrapped hot dog buns
and mundane perfumed doilies
are just not worth

these heavy chains
and long long hours
good liege

that it is your choice
is ubiquitously mourned
but it is.

it is
and so we plea (non a
priori) priority look and see

you’ve made one man happy
king
(no, you’re right)

thank you for your time.

gallows in five? make it ten
i should visit my icon
thanks see you then.

collision with a train

they’re not sure yet

it took off both her legs
but they’re still not sure

the fucking news reporters (god
i don’t know why i watched it)
played the nine one one call

all you can hear is her screaming

she mainly worked with
the kids and me at camp
imagine that

so busy saving and
now look at this

wheeling herself in
with the rest of the gang
next summer living poetry

and her goddamn legs are ripped off.