Quartz

In white stones

That can be palmed in the ascent

to shift fortune, or the perception of it

Beneath the shadows of black cloth

That roll through mentality

In the palace of a king

The shards of self are made whole

What stays are the vignettes

In the aviary of an emperor

We are honored, in our way

As the carpets of lichen reach across every surface

The tracks of cloven animals trampled the land

With such distinction

the memory lives in the soil

Like approaching thunder.

crest the landslide

Become the avalanche

my soul is the cactus that summits

and the broken bones in the gorge below.

And all of the rawness,

that lingers like the dust of another era

How the machinery of man has failed us

In theaters of choosing

They lay as the bones of great pasts

Strewn about the landscape as the wreckage of other mindframes.

It is in the broken stones we are made immortal.

In the shedding power

We are but a note in the chorus of spring.   

eleven hours

There is a mania of regency

Like a horse that never tires

even after hours of dexterous manual labor

There must be a trail of smoke

Down this rainy street, a stillness

black cats cross, slipping into the brickyard

upon my own rhetoric

As if a million microcorrections

Complete the semblance of an idea

As if perched between the future and now

A precipice opens that seems so clear

palpably thin, sanding the grain of time into practice 

nokier

In diminishing returns

They flutter out like little fish into my net

As if catching pierogis into cold water as they get blanched

 For less and less money

Thinking upon what it means to be labeled millennial.

In the spaces where I can’t afford medical care

And these pierogis sell for four dollars apiece

I’ve never eaten one before I came east.

And they look upon me as though I am foreign

And I think about the colors of live oceanic fish as they are pulled from the sea

Shimmering in the pacific sunlight before they die

And in that ocean is a world that is dying

Pulled from the dimensions that it knew

As we are mutually caught in the undertow to its suffering.

How deeply I wish to unravel the ills of our forbearers

And still we are caught in the web of their structure

Bound to the dragnet of their actions

Folded into a thing beyond agreement

To dream of living an arborescent life

& awaken upon world of cars and stone

Thinking only of the places where I cannot find peace 

a bit like knuckles slipping into a grater

the feeling of amateurity stinging more than pain

as the rivers and factories pass beneath the tracks

Feeling further from home  

As a child that has forgotten their gloves

the biting snow greets like catharsis

There in the shrieking where we balk at each other like ravens

behind human masks until we are breaking

where we consume as a thin parchment between realms of understanding

in the moments where chemical salts are used enhance the experience

there is some sublimating state that reigns throughout

in the merciless silence of spraying snow

the emergent bitterness that plays out as a fetish

where I rise through the stairs; knife in hand

upon theaters of formality and practiced demeanor

becoming whole to the fragments of the past

as the ability to fatten a ducks liver by force-feeding the creature

is an ancient and intriguing art of man’s abuses towards nature

done correctly, there is a squeal in the searing of it

as some concept of fragrance comes to mind

the suffering of the animal, eaten like the tallow of strife

boldly hedonistic into unstable futures

As if progressing two steps forward

and three back.

falling deeper and deeper into the forest.

They embrace me with their actions

as the rivers run thorough contaminated neighborhoods

as the flowers bloom in succession

like a chorus rising in time

sung by some myriad of small individual voices

power maintains a more gradual onset

a crescendo distant to my home

brought me here for some kind of humility

in the restless hours

spaces where upheaval consumes inertia

a bitterness draws my talons out

honed from a landscape that knows nothing but venom

in versatility, their eyes have never lain upon a king

as an establishment they know nothing of

to cry for a carnage they cannot withstand

awakening a bloodlust within

this too, is my empire

this too, is my reign.  

foie gras

Somewhere in the spaces between expectation and reality

In carnal luxuries there is a tide of gain and loss

Moving against and within itself.

As a dynamo churning in pornographic thoughts

rendered to the triviality

there is an absence that lingers

and I see it more but ignore it better

in a way that words don’t explain

there is a rift within ephemerality

I am displeased by my short experience of time  

In a hurt that has since become confusion

Like a falling snow that obscures the impact we make

As if entering a nuanced duality

I dream of human carnage and alien technology

To awaken in confines of circumstance

Haunted by the ghosts of inadequacy

rites of spring

It is the nexus of these things

That must come together

In their time, in their way

As it is the rebirth that binds us

As we are all but fleeting beings,

wound as a whole that

struggle and survive

unraveling against time

we must rise in the rebirth of each fleeting moment

whole—

undaunted from the experience

as if it bears no weight to our soul

as if supporting a lie that makes it hurt any less

but I come to bear my scars with pride

as if they are armor that holds all my inner anger in place

where it comes out of the softest part of me

I feel it in every blossom

I hold it in every breath

And there is a place beyond words

Where I feel it as an extension of something more than myself.

reference

Because language is so flawed

So broken

So filled with the failings of these human forms

Broken.

In a rage that shears ones character from their soul

So angry that it unravels 

the grace that makes us 

grown Piece by piece 

implacable 

 Rending empathy from self 

until nothing is whole 

 in the process that is 

becoming 

connected to an emptiness 

beyond words

Compleat.

hyphen

It plays out

in cheap street theater

punch-and-judy style

as the snow blows across current landscapes

it seems so far away

and still somehow omniscient

in the forethought of the past

manifested in moments that could-have-been

as the undaunted march of time

tramples us into oblivion.

And still,

We rise from the cracks in the asphalt

Only to have our seeds swept in the wind

Luxuriant and orgasmic

As if life itself

Naturally emergent

to the imagination of possibility. 


it scrapes like a card against the table 

as we draw into the future

play-by-play 

as all existence is but a game

as we draw heavier and heavier hands

resolved unto the agency of ourselves