fields

 what does anyone write about

just one field of all the same stuff

       illimitably individual

no, no one talks about work

forever this second          sacred

it becomes memorized or true or forgotten

no words are anyone’s

scars of identity

           red lights      and lavender to the left of them

vodka is probably the saddest of the alcohol group

    the ocean

           definitely

                 momentum

                       seagulls 

                             kissing

                                  childhood

secrets          being          on fire

salt

yawns

that mid yawn laughter

dried up and beautiful

         still       in glass

         stainless stillness of life             -unless touched!

i don’t know

        do you?

forget

 resembling a different death

a different falling breath

falling through a final sense of reason

I feel your bloodless wish

wishing you could forget

forgetting the in between season

you wish upon the dream at night

the smell of spring’s verdant appetite

the sign of death beaten

I dreamed your sad white hands

opened, the frightened eyelash lands

hidden from time’s umbral beacon

- unable to explain the story

with the words provided by nature -

how are you nowhere, ruse

the scent of all souls residue

you feel my false face sweeten

we are our own allure

perhaps the souls encore

dreams desire for roots deepens

because how you forget

not what

I would rather have a "huh..." than a "okay..."

there might have been something that you use to say
that would have helped me, yesterday -
or today -
or now
we've talked about everything except for that
that you've not said
it's refilling or it's empty -
it's the future, or it's the future
(not in a sci-fi way)

when love merits a scallop -
a single scallop -
that is THE BEST SCALLOP

once -
a coroner inside a scallop
whose name was Scallop:
"it is flowing now..."
gelatinous, and full of eyeballs -
"uncomfortable -
flotsam, centered in the corner of the eyeball"

I didn't even notice that truck,
bed full of spider mites.
they never sleep.
Larry - their spokesperson -
came forward to set the terms,
but we're waiting, watching -
I have a venus eyetrap
that never sleeps,
hungry for flotsam

once asleep
out of dormancy comes the era of the bloomscape
on an island of snow,
but also - doom

"doom, why the bonnet?"
(the lasergun makes sense)
there go the blooms -
but...why? really -
the foliage flourishes -
the bloomscape is alive

the sound of the body -
sometimes it just sits in my mouth -
like a doll's tilted, quizzical head

I was driving home one night -
I don't remember the night.
I'm very rarely out at night at one at night
(domestic or just poor or homebody and not
actually domestic but lazy or anti-social or
just more social at home - but why?)

also, when I slept last night -
I slept in a bed of baked beans
and wore nothing but potato chips
as pants and they were lovely
pants but I bled, as in my mouth -
as in the roof of my mouth,
as can happen with potato chips -
but also apparently potato chip pants

the variegation of the heart
and non poetic serendipity
(or - happenstance?)
whatever

I think you're a real poet
if you can pull off flotsam
and not come off as trying
to be a real poet

my greatest struggle in writing is
"who cares"
but if they can't understand
then they can't not care -
right?

if you were really tiny -
like say, a bug -
you could actually probably
float on flotsam
which would only be cool
if you were a poet bug
because no one else cares about flotsam

what I would give to start -
what was I afraid of -
eternity
a bonneted laserwielding doom in the bloomscape
writing my own poetry
or just starting

unspecified

perfect rings unroll around you
as you passively face your fractured extinction
the happiness you find in your sleeps
the sun, tangled in your hair
perfect mornings rise from the happiness you find in the fractured existence
with the velocity of green
green has the most velocity and happiness
some think yellow or orange, or maybe some think red
think shrapnel, from sunlight, from stained glass windows
it could have been a bird
calling, with it’s fractured voice implied
the happiness of calmness
and the calculus of mystery (62% unspecified, 26% fractures, 12% exogenic)
and the solidity of sleep
simplify the softness of roses and the transitions of souls
maybe I should stay home tonight
the twelve-faced spell brushes her teeth and goes to bed happily
the ornamental equinox searches
        fingerwalks across
                comes to erase me
and I don’t even have any gadgets
I wake up with happiness and stretch
“naked but underwear!”
I say, in my underwear, and nothing else
and I say nothing else

If I knew what I was doing, do you think I’d be doing this?

If I knew what I was doing, do you think I’d be doing this?

It’s not rhetorical. If I knew what I was doing

I wouldn’t be asking. It’s a good question

for folks who have more questions than confidence

be still or be strong

or

be still and be strong

you pick

I catch the light and I feel it

it stops there

sure I occasionally share it

but that’s often incidental

meet me three years ago

please

I’m glad you remember

it helps me remember

in the streets (walking)

it’s so different 

it’s a world different

I’ve exiled myself

I don’t know from who or what or why

but sometimes it feels good

I wash my hands of it

it’s all dependent of the angle

and the angle is always changing

I think we could all (mostly) agree

it would help if I rhymed some

it’s not that I’m numb, I’m just not free

are any of us? - and from whom? -

[from ourselves, of course]

the lying tomb we cannot divorce 

PAUSE    I am a ghetto

ME: starring me - leaking. stinky. silly vapors

sleeping on my own crumbled newspaper manifesto-less manifestos

it happens every day

I forgot my lipstick!

I sometimes incorporate lipstick!

just because it’s a positive word to say

in those songs you wrote

it doesn’t matter what you think

just what you feel

stars. sequins. kangaroos. [lipstick.]

Those songs you wrote

I can feel myself inside of them. It feels like where I want to be. The spirits might contribute. But you always walk me back to my hotel. Why? I stare until I realize that I’m staring, and then - when the time comes - I can’t look at you. Even though it [I] still feel good. I cease to know the feeling unless I’m feeling the feeling, and then I remember the feeling as I’m feeling it, therefor: I’m doubly feeling the feeling. Again: it could be the spirits; but it’s definitely not just the spirits. It’s the spirits that connect us. Even when I’m not me. That transcendental feeling. Identification required. 

To Whose Destiny Are We Being Summoned

have you ever felt like a bloom?

I often feel like a stem

acknowledging the presence of the breeze

of the suspicious air conditioning

vent

nearby

(indifference)

I am the stick (perhaps

I use to be a stem)

plunged into 

moss

soil

medium

I am not conferred;

a symbiotic relationship:

I hold a plant clip [which - 

mind you - was never a stick,

stamen, or stem, but plastic]

[this is not my Purpose]

next to the stem

to statuesquely support it's apparent stature

[but in all honesty

in the hypothetical hierarchy

of the overall prevalence of this particular plant

(including its beautiful,

obnoxious blooms) 

which is higher:

me, or the plant clips?]

[this is how I feel]

and its blooms

on a good day

I forget myself

I just look up

and breathe

well

either way, I breathe

just like renting a room

In My Window

perhaps we ought to feel more imaginative

if not simply to be so

perhaps I am less a bird or a fish and more - say- a lemon

or, maybe that's just what a lemon would want to believe

or, maybe it's just because I have a lemon

not a bird or a fish

perhaps it has come to pass

an old man's dream

an old man's dream

so many taxes

a sweetened, narcissistic stone

ours: the river

still alone

it's just a dream

stitched with seams of aerated plastics

what dreams leave behind

are these - no, those - memories

old friend

it's time to feel blood again

freely

some sticks

in the sky

rhyzotomous shadows

in the sun, hi

butter me up

look with me

I Know What It's Like

I would love

-threadbare-

to focus on your problems

if you could just...focus

    on your problems

and do the same

    and

have more interesting

...problems

the fungus moves freely!

ha. no

it actually doesn't

get over yourself

I don't regret dying

but saying so doesn't stop it from happening

(I'm not talking about dying anymore)

maybe it's a feeling

[before the bomb

or, the assumption thereof]

photographs

with the sun in my eyes

of you

not knowing where this is going

(with) the sun behind

Naivete

truly

I'm writing all the time

the distance belongs

I do believe in heaven

the distance applies

the (sun) has died and I haven't

how will I find you

without eyes

be nearby

can you deny

(there is no one

in the pool

in Tennessee

in December)

-not that we are-

that it feels like 

we are at the center

-perhaps intrinsically-

(in all probability)

(can you deny

probability is stained by actuality?)

(and yes, that is what makes it probability,

but what if it wasn't?)

(I was about to do something)

I Should Live Inside

The intention of adolescence 

And it's love consequence

Always at risk of unraveling

Like the wasted opportunity

Of the perfect hour

And sticky, squeaky shoes

Echoing long past their power

Make it hard to sleep

Sometimes

"It's just perfect though

To have someone else's will.

A found puzzle piece, you know,

if you will...but even that can't save you."

We're cozy, no adverbs

Sitting with neglected silence

Until the sun comes up

Silently as it went

My shadow's worth wavers

And wonders where we're going next

"What a dangerous thing to do - 

How dangerous the crossroads

Of the head and heart,"

Silently

Anyway - or, anyways -

Answers saunter, as always

In no sensible way

But for pride

All Inclusive

I should know you better than that
After acres of summers spent
After a funny hospital
After all those interiors
Entering the miles ahead jumbled
More miles than actual
And you? Yes, I did take that deep breathe
We will be painted, I guess
Without any awkward fight
Rising above staying down
The amber finch
Stealthily whispers the future
Just louder than the silence
Of this poem
Unfortunately in some bird language
(Finch, likely)
And we continue, silent
Heaven is somewhere
Around here
With only the emotions available
(Or, all the emotions available-
Or, available to all emotions available-
Or, I really can't remember,
But maybe something about an all-inclusive
Cruise?)
Oh, never mind
It's just a finch
In my dreams recently
Wonder if I could be pardoned?
It's just a flutter
But so much can happen
"It's all relative"
"Yeah, nice fabric"
(Each note struck upon the peak
Of the thingy with the crustaceany
Beak of the ambery finch
Fired with the echoing intensity of
kindergarten, times two.)

Either Way

Was the rest just practice, or is this, or is it all?

Of course it could be, but I don't believe in the postiche paradox

I'll just roll my shoulders therapeutically and choose the first

"I've contacted The Department of Subconcious 

Bridge Maintencance and they're coming next Tuesday. 

I'll be properly unavailable for some time, but of course

I'll remind you when we get closer. Anyway. 

Is there something else on your mind? I'm not trying to be too

Forward, but I had bit of déjà vu earlier. Heart shaped clouds
Were being plumply pumped from the sugar factory right into
What seemed to be zippy winds straight from Norway.
You can't tell me that doesn't mean anything, but we can discuss
It later if you wish. I suppose that's what this meeting is all about,
After all."

Do you recall the most satisfying sentence you've ever read?
Historically - in ones life - that could be considered significant.
Either way, I hope this counts as an effort. "I assure you,
These memories aren't a dream."