Pyre

It is this desiccation of self that wears us into these thin places.

This constant battle with ever-resurgent enemies that never tire.

 And we’re out here like some bumps on a log waiting for the next onslaught-

Bring the noise

Our voices will be suffocated in the smog and scattered to the wind

even the train has no respect for the dead

we will not be remembered, we will not mean shit in the years that follow us

we would be lying to ourselves to think otherwise

we would be betraying ourselves to think that we’ll ever reach absolution

but I wonder often, why you teach it

proliferating the idea while despising it, while harping on the invalidity giving it cause for celebration

vindicating through advertisement

at the same time; I am jaded

I am corrupted through my hate

in this contempt

I am addicted, in a way that rings true beyond myself

Like so many fiends, seeking the blood of the innocent in the night

I cannot be satiated in this way

It would be like a vampire to a robot

our souls are the butts of jokes

We will never see heaven.   

the godless invisceral

some articulate helix

words crumble in this plane

will of men wanes in the darkness

Where they are faced to confront

All of the realities that lies beyond this single sheet world

my reality, willing to extinguish others

My reality willing to triumph into the night

Willing to conquer and conquest over, and within, and under…

What exactly?

My reality; unable to conquer itself

Unable to find the batteries after the flood

After the combat that led our ship so far astray into this vaguely charted sea

when I say the words

The response is cheap, and honest

the truth is the truth

violence is real in a way that this invisceral sphere is not

this life is not even sustainable-

written in arcane language that becomes obsolete by the time its printed

 There are places that your god cannot reach

there are depths to this world that are reaching for you

in light and in darkness

it is unfair and unlikely that things will change

it is unfair and unlikely that things will remain as they are

all the unraveling of this world will be trite and forgotten

in the instant all present realities are extinguished  

Lich

As if unraveling mistakes in ambition

 ambitiously unraveling mistakes

pulling from within, by pulling externally

the term for which penetrates this reality

as I invest myself into external things

investing upon investment

and penetrate through time

like a worm boring through thick earth

as those before me experienced

a transmutation of those feelings that we once held dear

a transformation of belief that once mattered in a past life

learning to live forever by learning that life is meaningless

becoming immortal by dying

but within this reality

there are doors to the others

and some of them lead nowhere

and some of them lead to strange and forgotten places

and all of them lead to places external to this reality

as external as my reality must be to you

in the way that the mind can be manipulated and feelings can betray us

realities open and close all around you

if we could only open our eyes to see them.

September Harvest

It’s come to this.

more peace. More peace of mind

jutting suddenly to the left 

as if being struck by an invisible object

obsessed with carnage

violence and impunity

like oil seeping into tiny fissures  

and all I have to say

The thing about power is: it’s not even

Where radiation pours down on my terrain incessantly;

With a match this would be a firestorm

and I bleed water here

at a great expense that cannot be fully understood

in the way that I love to vandalize things

is not so apparent to the layman

however

it takes a lot to lift oneself

and it’s always proportional 

It’s not what you want it’s what you need.

And you Fucking Need to understand this

As if each foreign noise is cause for suspicion

There is nowhere to run, that matters

As I am constantly overwhelmed by the thought that I cannot articulate how I feel in this reality

It drives me fucking crazy

In a world of piety and righteousness, (I am the Golgari)

We defeat things by making a mockery of them

And seek to entrench ourselves; so that others will not make a mockery of us

the answer is apparent : : take the initiative

in any direction

that leads you where you need to be 

along this road, I have learned to exhume some kind of strength

because a twitching hand sequesters a shaking one,

in a way like chasing a phoenix through the dark places of your mind

becomes an insatiable search for perfection

like crushing a snowball into ice

the problem that presents itself then is a systemic one:

practice pursues perfection forever

you can never do anything too right

a fatal blow can never be too clean, a tree can never grow too  well

(a love can never be too perfect)

  like all nerves, they must make connections

and in this fractalated universe

the dimensions that must be traversed

are difficult to express with words

in a frivolous attempt to conceptualize

a thing that must be experienced  

22/100

It all comes out as the same note.

The same space where everything seems to be of one color

Where the most adventurous dreams end in a time-consumptive lesson

And all that was and is are the same

Passing some thoughtless nexus
traveling through entrophy

As time destroys us all

Each to our own design

The madness blooms under feral sun

Suspicions boil where affirmation once held sway

Under the reign of the sun

Everything becomes a competition

As the proliferation of self is all-consuming

surfacing

This constant ballet of resources

Money there, funding here, gas, food, weed, blow

It’s a life of constant allocation

When I want to understand more than I already do

In this void from which all things come

That needs to expressed: like an infection

Where everyone’s right. I’m just being lazy.

But I too know. That this is all nothing.

When the thunder breaks the sky

Breaking through everyone’s

sense of self-importance.

I have not learned anything if not to save.

 subsist on little in this desert of violence and meth

control is a farce. Like human constructs built on constructs

dreams within realities. We are the forgotten. We are the underclassed. We are the expendables in a time of excess.

And yet we persist indulgently.

some fevered corruption of reality that sustains itself

in the way that self-actualization

becomes the last kind of orgasm you need

but don’t want to have

In the dark

Behind the coyote lines

The hinnies if the young burros fall silent

The as I stand there

In the darkness overwhelmed by an emotion

Akin to terrified. Akin to fear.

in a large drain some doppelganger

unnervingly emulates what I do.

what brought me here:

It was the cinderblock courtyard in the middle of the night

Lit by one single halogen bulb that hummed into the encircling darkness

Generators underneath steel plates

Guarded a quarter mile to the west by novice security

What-the-fuck-does-that-door-into-the-ground-open?

What brought me here:

curiosity greater than anxiety that dominates

every space in my mind

behind me headlights don’t even realize they are perusing

and I sweat to get away,

to upper ground that they never seem to see  

Unable to express their own demise

As innocent as children that reach out yearningly

Their hearts are so haplessly underdeveloped

And I am not a good player in this

recognizing your own shortcomings

is the worst.

But it’s true.

Its honest and it’s self-actualizing

And it’s uncomfortable

we prevail. In such a way

on heavy tracks

they saunter

into the unknown

unable to perceive the forest for the trees

I ask myself

What my role in this matter should be.

Often.

21/100

The blue hour

beginning so suddenly

that it could hardly be said that it happened at all

the fireflies  with their persistent

hallucintationesque sex ritual

parodying something that I have been so shy to say

the kodama came out

as children looking for players in a kickball game.

it made me smile through my being

I had to graciously decline

“I am too heavy to play in your dimension”

But I will be coursing through the green for the rest of the night

I will proliferate with you.

In you.

As you.

In the very least; I can see you.

I can feel you.

And while I would desperately love to play.

The mosquitos drink my human flesh.

The ticks transmit diseases to me in this reality.

But I will join you soon enough

Share in this night with me

As we wander through the dark

into other dimensions
slipping from this one  

bell-symbol

Under the raincross

The tears that fail to fall

we share a cough

in the pollution that never ceases

the roaring freight breaking up an otherwise still night

with horns that fracture the loyalties of this

forgotten realm

how have I come here?

What am I fighting- in this tragedy

Am I another player

Some bounding knight, some marching pawn

As we are all plainswalkers in this desert of queens

none are as useful as the hoof and talon

nothing is easy in the hot desert wind

chapping your face and hands into a submissive blue-collar slave.

Under the raincross

Oranges are crushed by vacant warehouses

Tweakers grift lawnmowers, bicycles and stereos

traffic asphyxiates all the dreams

nonexistent money strangles children of their futures

as if they had some other option to enlightenment

beyond the sale of their flesh

but I am not one to talk

 I cannot afford to shed water in this way

And we worship it,

Here; the bell and the glyph,

That never make any rain

Though we pray to them as if they could

As if all the deference in the world would save us

Begging for water in the name of some misplaced loyalty

The sound and the symbol cast their shadow

Fetishizing everything the burning heat touches

We don’t pray for water as much as we pray for cathartic tears

Remove us from the hurt that we bring upon each other.

20/100

Such survivors, troopers

“bro, I’m glad you’re here.”

In this small sandbox

With all these posers

I needed someone that knew how to separate the

Men from the boys

In this realm

Where coyotes reign and wolves starve

Deer explode on the freeways under trucks

That ship plastic

Tattooed and lazy

You fuckers sleep for days at a time

Hibernate right through summer

through fall and most of winter

constantly sleeping

…but sleeping less than those around here

rising early in this perverse spectacle

like a twelve-year-old with morning wood

in the way that infants fondle themselves  

you sick fucks.

With the trapping of the scarabs

In that big satellite-dish pussy

With its adjoining semen ball-pit

Because your intersexed

Interspecies debacle,

With that 23” gigantic-ass genital… thing.

that smells like, Ass.

  No matter what the cause or the case

we will all do what it takes for release

not all of us will know it

and to those, I am sorry

to seek it

on our own terms

to win our own battles

to live and die by the terms we see as necessary

and to love in the way that we choose

I have no valid judgments in this world

only the will to contribute.         

the dream

Under the black flag

We listen.

 In the thunder of the early morning

The verses unfold

Deeply through the various layers of this

Psychic universe

I heard them

In a tongue so foreign

Beyond this realm, beyond these vanities

Striking a chord that

reverberated within

driving all this cheap thoughtless crap

retroactively into itself

as a mirror that cannot withhold

the deluge that inhabits  

all the spaces between us

the rising tide, the waxing and waning crescent

dictating all that this world was ever meant to be

slipping away into the minutia

that would later define an existence  

    

i don't think you know

 between our two lives

there is also the life of

the cherry blossom

    -Basho

Where the mushrooms grow

on the thought of your voice

in the yearning hours of the morning

where I want nothing more than a taste

of your heart

in my ancient, dank parts where the rafters collapsed eons ago

I offer you the same freely

with no presupposition

in the way that I say “tiger”

I mean…

There was only ever you.

With every minute of life that slips away

The only thing killing me

Is the way our two lives unfold

Between us, dividing us,

this world quartering and refracting you from me

I cannot deny it; that lasting ache,

My yearning heart through so many dimensions

So many words -text messages –photos

of your life that I am not a part of

of my life that you are not a part of

sakura fade and rise and fall

upon an ocean of what I feel for you

in the depth of my water

there is a voice that cannot be heard

shrieking out into a world

asphyxiating under its own smog

the samara flutter into the darkness

in such an uncertain future

nothing astonishes

save for
how amazing I think you are

  

where angels shed their wings

Behind this screen

Beyond this imposing appeal

Something that makes its point

Something that is real

maybe making sense is overrated

Maybe alotta things

Where the red skies burn

Where angels shed their wings

Proliferate this play  

like any of it mattered

this world where scars come easy

hearts get shattered

like knots that are binding

like a voice that never sings

sustaining a sphere of nothing

in a land of toppled kings

withheld as the treasure

to make the rich feel flattered

in this land without voice

as if any of it mattered

Where angels shed their wings

Hearts get shattered

in a land of toppled kings

as if any of it mattered

more than the words

more than the verse

beyond this realm

it feels less like a curse 

ballet of the ghetto

They dance like paper dolls

each locked in a waltz that cannot be undone

shouting comments about heroin, jail, and the various profanities that rule their lives

of powerful ego they have been made

forged in violence, made strong through the decades

by any number of needles and lines

or smoke and chemicals that have framed their existence

pit bulls that wander the streets in search of idealized freedom

seeking some kind of solace in their self-reliance

as they sleep on the street just outside of their fence

strays that have nowhere else to go

find refuge behind the tarpaulin-coated gate

street dogs find refuge here

when their owners vanish into the back of a squad car, never to be heard from again

as that same gestapo crawls down the street religiously

worshiping their paper god with an assault rifle at the ready, as if superior

in this twisted joke where the trains never stop for an instant

where sirens and helicopters rule the land and air

out at the edge the burros call out

crying in the darkness to a land that was once barren but filled with definite life

as the memories of what once was vanish

into the sound of a helicopter   

under the light-polluted sky    

19/100

(i understand this number)

I like to imagine that

In the beginning

There was a choice

They we all lined up

And asked, what direction that they would like to go

And they all drew lots

And some said they wanted connection before all else

Some said that they wanted closeness

Some wanted power

Some wanted understanding

And it was true, they too could have any measure of anything that they sought

Like any number of innumerable things

And so the lots were decided

And they had to roll with it

 And those that sought connection were connected,

but they were weak.

they were distant and detached

and those with power lost understanding

and those with understanding lost closeness

and so forth; a million times over

(not that I understand this number)

I understand being Human.

When a vitamin hits the bottom of your stomach

Nausea, bringing me to my heels on the back porch  

and it’s trying to come back up

those little huffing breaths right before the deluge

and then it passes. Strangely.

I understand being human.

I didn’t give a shit

about the nettles that were

to get vomited all over

the little seedlings

comfortably nestled in the winter soil

and I cannot care for the cattle

that were butchered a thousand miles away.

For which I have eaten.

It was already decided

like the ladder that was already in position

Long before we even realized there was one

And somehow evaded entropy

Long enough

For this to be considered

A state of lower energy   

      

Crayola

 Come play in my dungeon

Come hide away with me

Down here in the darkness

Is the place you need to be.

Come play in my dungeon

Where I will take you in

And hold you like a virgin

While bathing you in sin

we shall strip you of your clothes

we shall tie you up in chains

remove you from the monotonous

absolve you of your pains

Does that hurt a little?

Does it make you want to scream?

Are you feeling frightened?

Relax its just a dream

It’s a dream that you've been having,

since you were a little girl

That some black knight would carry you,

Out and away of this plain world.

As you have dreamt of me before

I can see it in your eyes

That undeserving gaze you have

Fails to mask your lies

But you my dear can earn it

You can take something here from me

An experience not so forgettable

An experience in which you’ll see

I will clothe you in a black banner

I will nestle you in trust

As if a beautiful jewel

Polished in wet lust

I will break you like a branch

I will draw you like the sea

To this ache you yearn for

That will bring you back to me

There is more to it than the trivial

Do you think I’ll break your soul?

As you feign to realize

Your flesh is only a fraction of the whole

Experience it quite deeply

mind the noises that you've heard

should you need your freedom

now you know the word 

18/100

Where the ailanthus grow large

Larger than I have ever seen

In this place I inhabit

Like some poverty dream

Datura are running

as fast as they can

their anthem is stunning

in this forgotten land

we buy our food

nonexistent in fund

lying about ailments

and things we’ve never done

conditioned in this place

its common in this land

to cry out like a child

and then claim to be a man

the roads are hopelessly broken

where dreams do not take flight

playing this serenade

with the people of the night

in the night Datura open,

louder than the train

silent in the darkness

relinquishing us again

the tears for the fallen

that haunt this place so deft

for a world that wastes nothing

for a realm with nothing left

within these cold nights

all that slips away

coyotes carrying on

for the coming of a new day

Under the hunter/still in the hood

Underneath the great hunter

The trains roll by, their horns cutting through the night, like the powerfully-dull whack of a machete

Across the street drug dealers …do their thing.

I hear dogs
whimpering in high pitched squeaks

like nettles stinging my ears
and seem so much like a scarecrow
standing in the yard

Leaning on my shovel, in awe of how many people will buy a pint of hard liquor before noon.

Dumbfounded by the regally blind, that constantly mob past

Unable to see the desert tobacco, for more than anything than a passing glance

The ephedra grows unruly as the nights and days merge

Conflicted within extremes that they will shed integrity

As their skin, leaving a crumpled mass in the skipping sand

Willing to do whatever is necessary

Surviving in this world for another day 

and I am among them
i am afflicted
survivalist,
landing like some windblown seed
from a jungle
exactly like this one
I am glad we have shared in this experience
because I have seen how orchids are as cactus
with innocence obliterated
on those balmy nights
where our flowers bloom
to the sounds of human chaos
offspring are of secondary importance
provided there's enough water
as we travel by night to conserve energy
our skin becoming leathery and worn
as we rub it upon the fabric of this realm
the smell of colitas
the distant crack of gunfire
somewhere in the distance the burros
run around under the stars and the coyotes try to eat them
occasionally you can hear of their victory
like whoop-whoop of some neighbor going to jail
under the flashing lights
the air pollution that lingers
like the ringing of the trains brakes splitting the air.
the hills rise like dark islands out of a never ending sea of lights
somewhere, it is all as it should be

Creeping Shadows

the shadows creep slowly

The road home is long

the bass has all but faded

we loiter to carry on

the letters still wet

plastered upon plastic walls

feeling nothing but prowess

echo a helicopter’s call

this is war

for the art we defend

the consequence of all-

in a life we never lend

it is the song of an alpha

the verse of king

in the shadows of a voice

with words that none ever sing

never backing down

but knowing when to run

in the blue hour of memory

snapping as the recoil of a gun

like the pawns in some game

hidden within this façade

as ants are to men

as men are to god

like some twisted folk hero

some cheap marionette

hiding in plain sight

where we check and then bet

make no mistake in this game

the stakes will run high

the end is always the same

across the river where they lie

the song carries on

silently in the night

with the words of my hands

sitting just out of sight