Effect/Affect

Desiccating in the temple

Where we reap annealed flesh

the cyclical thoughts remain

underneath and within and somewhere

a song cannot be heard

where a bitter wind blows everything into perpetual memory  

horrifically beautiful virus of thought

dissolving into cheap honest theater

as waves crashing on the shores of the gross

water that can never be afforded

should not be shed here

give up nothing, and remember:

we are the nation of no flag

we have no demands

we will prevail.  

10/100

the whispers I hear

sound exactly like a chain

writhing on concrete 

Rang like a bell

The echoes reverberate, proliferate

Cacophony becomes him

Sound and fury

Thirst and hunger

Conflicting as the lines of patience and impertinence penetrate everything

And he regins down on black wings

Bringing void into every sip that life has to spill

“by the time you see where they are connected, it will be too late” she says
but it is always just a little too late
And resonates
back and forth through the temple of self

Absolving everything in the taste

The smell

That takes them back, centuries, millennia to a time when that vapor was fresh and new

When things did not ricochet in and out of their heart

Refracting everything into so many colors

Allowing Every fragile ripple to amplify.
in a world where every whisper
rings like a bell.

8/100

Broken earth becomes

The echo upon echo of what once was

As they knocked each one out

For fear that they would be crushed

Under their tremendous breadth

Unfortunate then, to stand among brothers

Among titans, fearing nothing

Save for a lifetime of isolation

Where soil screamed their names

and found them victims of human fear

challenges that no human could know

Because humanity is so, human.

stretching limbs

to a god that brings no refuge

still seeking it in objects and words

killed with technology

they fought virgin flesh against tempered iron

and lost, each severed limb shook the earth

as others sat without so much as an afterthought

but they left the mysorenesis

the gaunt young mother 

as though she would not carry within inverted breath

the whispers of what was to come.

9/100

When you left,

there was nothing;

but the gentle zephyr blowing through the fragments

of my shattered heart.

Do you remember

the first time summer

became fall?

7/100

Surreal in the way that things pan out

I called out, dreaming of more

Less.

Better.

On that balmy summer night where I picked you the flower from a tree

Not so different than my own 

with the honest exception

my tree doesn’t make flowers anymore.

The perfume spilled from every crevice

From every alcohol-laden word as we all slipped back to childhood

With Edan who laughed so much as we fell through the streets

On that star filled night

Leaving me intoxicated with the patterns of your dress

As it trounced through the streetlights

into the wheat-pasted halls

Still under construction,  to this day

I wake up sometimes, smelling the perfume of that gigantic white flower

Recall the texture of your hair

Running through my fingers as I palmed your head

On those summer nights that persist in my memory

As the petals of a flower that never withers

And I question the nature of my syconium

And the nature of what it means

to bloom.  

6/100

the Zephyranthes blow in the wind

remembering nothing

wanting to be more than they are

crowded between fifteen other species

where four out of five of their flowers

are devoured

imitating compositae, somewhere between liliaceae and hippeastrum

 invisible to the layman

I heard your secrets, so deep

Through the echoes  

they reverberated as the ripples in a pond

crossed over the threshold in time

don’t say,

don’t speak,

I can see you.

I can see you for what you are.

Through you, I see the future.            

Pastel

I love to lie.

Plain and simple.

I don’t owe anyone anything.

facts of worthiness and deservation

When I go to one of your art shows to be humiliated

Humiliated.

I spoke.

 With those

who quit.  

gave up the old life,

to pursue the essence of art.

Know that I have loved

belief that is out to where no one has ever been and nobody can relate

On the rooftops

I watch the police hunt

And paint from a sense of worthlessness

dreaming that I will be something more than this

lying to myself for another day      

5/100

The demise of such great kingdoms

Nobody ever truly wants to see

As the last log of the forest rolls out on a flatbed truck

Every last thing, remnant, and echo of what once was

Is obliterated, swept asunder in this contemporary dementia

The compulsive activities that were once adored

Become Little more than a tragic opera

That I’ve come to memorize

Word for word,

Line for line,

In the childishness of a rerunning cartoon where each syllable,

can be repeated emulating a faceless voice-actor

Because loving strays is as charitable.

Still obsessive in pursuit

that I often recall when thinking of how far I’ll be able to get

with one monetary unit, contemplating it’s significance

harboring the power to bring empires to their knees

one friendship at a time

one vanity manifested

one impossible dream pursued

friendships implode, love dies, dreams evaporate   

I wonder often

When the last tree falls, will we use it’s timber to build homes

Or make paper?

Or, will it be used as a battering-ram

to knock in the gates of our enemies?

will we all die alone with the illusion that there was someone there for us?

a simple lie that we deluded ourselves with

if only to find a fleeting comfort

in a world where nobody ever got what they wanted

 

4/100

cinders flitter
embers of a past life
that seep from the fractures
the bellows of your deep breath
i will always carry within myself

in transitional form,
sauntering between trees of subconcious
shadows of perspective slip
between the flames

forget.

fixate.

echoes of pyres and soil
within all that is
our earth gives way
absolved in ignorant depths

ashes feed the emaciated
criminal occupation of vermillion
emergence, defined in ability
foreverness spoken as ultimacy
shedding sparks to let this place ablaze    

fail and cave

Heavy handed in approach

I felt your artillery shell for shell

left barren and evacuated  and vacant

the bitter angles of discontention reigned at the spokes of some great chariot

careening out of control in the red lights, the balmy nights that slip-

in and out of this forgettable, self-obsessed, crush.

Tear this from sanctioned structure

gamble upon this with fidgeting questions

claw at yourself, like whispers of the love you will never know again-

concrete in it’s approach, yet never submitting, never surrendering

that would be too much. too much to bear

as a ricochet, reverberate, devastation.

poetic in nature, take consolation in the secondary effect

Submerge those feelings, recalling yourself as an afterthought

your voice called to them through time, retroactively

Because perception was less than what was expected

Though permeating in soft tissue where it hurt you most

You could never cry, that would be; emasculating 

Echoing prefectures though your mind

Spilling casings in dainty, violent little steps

Damages to the forgettable forgotten

hold nothing, you mean nothing to this place and slip away

Never knowing the pungent, greasy smoke

what cataract-laden visions came defended, desperately.

They told us of some place where we could retreat

Defending a flag of no color

children dominating the world with their fractured gray failure

Shattered in a way that nothing can reconcile

Blather me your words, spin me into the fabric of your story

Until the truth becomes a beautiful, mechanical, lie.

Of Titans

Unlocking and unlocking and unlocking

pieces scattered about haphazardly

Absorbed into the soil by their own weight

pull the threads of thought out of me

an afforded luxury that was never fully appreciated

the armor of this great terrestrial titan

never submitting to the brutal, hate-filled impacts

galvanized by the ire of revenge against this world

I opened those plates to let you in

Where that fluorescent, melliferous pink substance comprises all that I am

Opening as the valves of some great machine

Showing rather than telling

Your venom hit home so deeply the plates snapped back into place so suddenly

I could not even open myself to remove the infection

Understanding, perhaps more deeply than anything, the definition of ‘vandalized’

As that substance became congealed

Fortified in hurt as the latticework of past infringements

It cannot be unlocked by you in your current form

see me for what I am

remember the electricity of my flower

seek perfection in the process’ of development

there is another way to expose my color

as æther always finds its way to the earth

conflict does not become you

there is another way

2/100

Where urea dissolves into nitrates

They carry with them such high expectations

A title that separates them from others

Copied from a farm

Copied from an old life

Copied from their origins

Wrenched foreign animals from a place that carries no context

Thrive here

Love me now

You are my children, you are of me

Sterile fabricated copies of greatness

So many intersecting platforms

Create the object

The same as the year of my birth

The same as the monster within

The same soft thorns that reiterate

“I want nothing of your humankind”

we have traveled together

as brothers, as sisters

and opened the rift into something more

where I suggest your name in seduction

your loving grenades detonate

from my lips

in huge perfumed flowers

a magnitude that can only be shared with another

the subtlety of a dragon’s kiss   

Girl in the Tower

Sauntering like a tank through the forest

The eyes of a melanistic jaguar

Fade…

Upon the tower that she built herself into

Waiting for a magnificent hero

a riding prince  on a white horse, that assuredly gallops the paths of the forest

proud and beautiful and strong and compassionate and just and righteous and pure and glorious and virtuous and well-spoken and  handsome and tall and noble and wealthy and magnificent in every way.

Who rides into the depths of the jungle to save the princess

To rescue her from…

What exactly?

take her from her own tower,

carry her back to his castle, where she may reside without lifting a finger

bring her a sense of purpose in telling the maidens what to do

feel complete.

Within a sense of comfort and finished product

an understanding of words

words that symbolize finalization

words that mean more than they do

in a jungle teeming with variety and life and something so far away

from the alabaster tiles

that pave that castle

where the shimmering eyes of the forest swell

the river under the incessant rain rises

and the trees here remember how the buttress’ formed

the liana drink it like palm wine and orchids that vomit their vibrant sexuality

because nothing is quite like the original,

the hand-picked stones that comprise that tower

unearthed from some frost-bitten quarry

carried, by hand, one at a time

one heartfelt line of dialogue woven of yarn

used as mortar

galvanized in mistrust

and the tower grew, and grew

when the scaffolding fell away

the excess timber had been burned

and birds fled

a standing structure

from the shade of great trees

the forest creatures looked on in confusion

where previously unimaginable

stone and yarn built a monument

to the concepts of unobtainable

it’s eyes shutting softly,  masking the hurt

become  invisible in the crepuscular world

where a monument dwarfed everything with its ideals of man

a monument forgotten by its creator

an abandoned  object of vandalism

waiting for a prince to liberate the girl inside

while respirating forest said nothing of the fungi that dissolved his bones

said nothing of the sickness that he suffered from the bite

of a single

insect.

the melanistic jaguar watched his white armor become soiled

as convulsions took hold

brought on by the ensuing fever

and prince or not, ended his life tenderly with more than a kiss to the neck

looked upon the tower unable to tell its secular inhabitant what happened

because;

follies are no place for great cats

where imitation is only as good as its core

and could not even travel the beaten paths of thick jungle

(…not that the prince was carrying a ladder or anything)

sorrow could not reincarnate

what human weaknesses became overlooked

within ambiguous desires

the jungle recovers slowly

where it was razed around the base of the tower

eventually the liana will engulf it

the ferns will take up residence within its decaying mortar

and it’s one nude resident

will leave.

The only way to truly have anything is to be a part of it;

not simply to reside within it

behind fortified walls

waiting for better.

In the reflection of the rising and falling river

The melanistic jaguar’s eyes fade…

from a color of innocence

To a shade of experience

Lapping up cool clear water with its large tongue

Forgetting the past

Crayfish saunter under the surface

As they eat the same algae

that thickly coats their shells

while everything waits for the liana to overrun the tower

a matter of time

becomes the currency

the Ficus scheme to place one of their own  upon the precipice

the monument will become internalized.

A standing futuristic tower coated in vegetation

there is only one law of the jungle:

grow.

Prevail

Removing this shard

not that it hurts anymore.

The missing lens

To a spyglass that searches for land

Against backdrops of barren seas

Played cautious, coy, and close

How can I tell you are my species?

The perception of your depths I lost

I left them someplace,

someplace that fears

as the photo album that lives

in the back corner

of the floor

of the basement
in my mind.

how I wish they burn collaborative effects

as they team up one by one in my mind,

jokes

that I don’t ever bring up

subconscious puns  

where being haunted became comedy at some point

and the ghosts in me never hesitate

to spread wings and draw blood

I wish I could

left with only the running ink

words that nothing can relate, re-tell, or rephrase

when I met our end on some barren road

with nothing to chase but your smell

lowering our eyes and wanting nothing

one foot in front of the other, one day at a time

abdicated what was once soft tissue

 and became callous with infection

that we call

survival .

simple torture

As we talked of rape

Of injustice, hate, power and dominance

While coming home from a class on the subject, where tears had been shed by different individuals for days in a  row

to find the flowers of one of my Stanhopea had been eaten by a snail.

And I climbed that tree

And traced the silver trail to where that little creature had been sleeping

And found the snail

And pulled its shell off

Threw a fistful of ammonium nitrate all over it’s fleshy naked body

To reap revenge for what it had done to my flowers

And all flowers, everywhere.

it had little effect beyond the torture of a simple organism

That did not realize it had trespassed upon anything

And I realized that my most prized flower was avenged, through torture

 As my mind was warped around torments of a different variety, and the drawn suffering of humans  

As the snail desiccated under caustic salts and the burning sun

The stanhopea bloomed, but never to its full glory

As we felt the hurt of all the women in the world, and our powerlessness to help any of them

 Pronounced as a powerlessness to control the wickedness that lived within ourselves

And the snail sat there dying in the sun, I felt the power that the attacker must have felt

Redirected upon the manifestation of my subconscious

And realized the twisted, convoluted, evil

Lurking within the depths of man

Realizing that I cannot do anything but react.

powerless that I could not heal the injured but could only punish

simple torture inverted as a snake eating it’s tail

1/100

With each passing second

become more and more withdrawn

drift to where your people grow wild

wherever that may be

stop talking

stop moving

just breathe.

And if we could eat up the sun, that would be fine

As connection and disconnection become juxtaposed

Whisper the name of lovers, fly the banner of others, let the wind do all the work

Forget with me

A sculpted echo that remembers nothing

we are ephemera.

Lisopain

Without commercials, gimmicks, or words:

On this stretch through the

Post-Friday

Traffic

like an escape pod from some foreign

mother-ship that I once knew

after some previous unnamed carnival

after some previous unnamed reason

we cut, and dodge through with the melody

and run the high-hat in the fifth gear

where a little screen tells us

that the power is draining from the battery to the engine,

from the engine to the battery

and back again

from my terse excitement

to the unexpected red-light chorus  

across the bassline it creeps

like your beating heart and my skittering eyes,

and the fear that this could go horribly wrong

and the excitement that it might not,

filled with the absurd hope I will get to see all that cartoon shit that I envy so much

will I see a fish-eyed man with varicose veins that run out from his head whenever;

he looks to his left

..or his right

Wondering, to what entity does this hall way of steel and iron and concrete  

 the taste of the past and the future coalescing into one ever-present now

and i asked the trees: “what god?”

and they said nothing because

their leaves

had all been

decapitated.

But their roots ran deeper than the navigation-system

As they continued to Fold the concrete into toddler-origami

As the scale of the word washed the downtown skyline

As a sandcastle
consumed in the word:

  

Lisopain    

The Loquat Walks

When the loquat perfumed the air

In the balmy, still nights

Where we slipped out

Holding hands in the dark

Discussing…

Drugs we had done

Dreams we had

Denizens we had known

Greedily picking tropical fruit

as bats that can never have their fill

devouring each one  so slowly

their preciousness never valued, until now

holding…

hopes that we shared

hurts that we hid

humans that we loved

fading lights of passing cars

thin threadbare clothing

arcs of orange spots that framed the statement:

“I having fun.”

Loving…

Life as it gave us nothing

Luxuries that were irrelevant

Loquats, acquired like golden trophies

Two at a time, pocketing their perfectly slippery stones

Knowing I would never plant them

Because Wild-type fruit is so much sweeter

When stolen, with someone you love.

Sans

if i could let you know,
theres nowhere left to run
if only you would show
where ill find the sun

would i fight on every day?
would i give you my all
imagine what i would say
pretend that i would call

there is no going back
this threshold we have to cross
when it just fades to black
and theres nothing left but loss

there is no retreat
nothing left to give
never admit defeat
with so much life to live

it all unfolds the same
embers of the dream
worlds without shame
suture up the seam

the players come and go
the songs will always change
in a world that we don't know
where nothing is the same








 

Holding you,

is enough.

enough for me to swoon over

enough for me to wake up three days later, still obsessed, still yearning

my home is where you are

if ony you could realize

its not a question,

...but an answer

as i have pulled all the harpoons i taught you how to make

and

folded them into paper cranes

that take flight

and sacrificed pieces

and pieces

and pieces

until all that is left

is the transitional form

that wants you.

a pillar of my connection

with humanity

my (one) want, in no uncertain terms

sluts

Named for a Mexican whore

That he fucked

While tweaking in Tijuana

Played her all day

Until pink skin peeled from the ensuing sunburn

Where he returned to work on the derricks

years fell behind him

as a myth with no evidence

beyond our realms of thought   

we shared her as a tag-team

where to regain my swagger

I used the little slut

to regain

my voice  

In the musty pawn shop

Where I saw her

Missing two strings, in a broken smile

Her sturdy build, beautiful sound

Swooning as I leave

To walk home alone

in the rain

with nobody, the secret

is the ultimate gift 

 in the way we shed our former selves

without words. 

    

Rank

If I could cut you away

From that decoration you carry around

The same image copied and stenciled

standing like a Pomeranian

I’ve seen it before

 slip into the dark

I promise I’ll bite.

Imagining the sunrise

With you near

I remember the motorcycle

out of the realm, trying so hard

swooning over the physical material

collision of our two lives where he asphyxiated, it

as an incubus

he left you

as you left me

drawn off by the song

too afraid to dance

a beautiful slob

like yourself

like myself

Put a lance to my pink ribbons and lacerate

the connection

asunder in yearning words, that

you.

wont.

Read.

the repeated reflection
photograph after photograph of, nothing
beyond the surface
i get it,
there is nowhere left to run
but inward.
what you have to show
eclipses anything
worth spitting venom

where the words and actions are made of paper
something as singular as in one dimension
such deftness for ideals
that were founded in the breast
of a little girl
when they were still real
recalling freewill
as a bad dream


know that home

Is where people share laughter

slipping into the valley

I always recall the place

remembering you for eons

in parallel I can love

anything so perpendicular

if only

they could

let go.   

residing

peel apart everything.

Everything.

With little diligent fingers

unravel everything into the way it should have gone, the way it took place in my head

and I, I was so wrong.  I thought that this place had more to offer

in the pit of our minds I hear your echoes clearly

a resonance that drives

more than you realize

trying to outrun the stretching shadows

in the ricochet of the starlight I become

hardened.

Held into this trap

Institutionalized to a degree that I will never seem to escape.

And we hold it, and we bear it, and the luxuriant infection seeps in through the splinters

I Know, what it means to know that my best is not enough

 I am not enough. my infection is deep. The way is long.

But I am not a slob.

As I think of seeing you happy again. Excited. Exciting. Exhilarated for the coming day

bleed my infection into this gray place, and smile.

not for you.

Eating alone again,

I forgotten everything where you were my friend

With those words that never last

Where everything was already done in the past

And we’ve built up ripples in the pond

The places I’ve walked before never felt so long

And the holes inside never fill

In a life of just more time to kill

I dreamt of your face

Through this empty place

 And I called out your name

but nothing changed, and it was all the same

and I, I will fight, stay the course through the night

where all came out wrong

and we traded it all for a song

and you, you weren’t there, as if you even cared

as if I could sleep in the heat

searching for something I may never meet

a place that I could call home

it’s a place that I may never know

don’t you try to reclaim

everything torn down in flames

don’t you try to regain

the sphere of this place causes so much pain

and I, I will fight, stay the course through the night

where all came out wrong

and we traded it all for a song

and you, you weren’t there, as if you even cared

as we hold on to our spark

in a world of lasting dark

I will find a place I know

A place that I can call home